


Mr. Henry Anderson: Room 298

by blackeyedblonde



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, Banter, Caretaking, Falling In Love, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, Gunshot Wounds, Hand Jobs, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Light Angst, M/M, Meet-Cute, Nurse Connor, Pet Names, Romance, Tender Sex, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:54:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22993537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/pseuds/blackeyedblonde
Summary: Mr. Anderson’s been under for nearly three days when he utters his first waking word.It’s a miracle Connor was in the room to even hear it, really. He’s just finished hanging a new bag of fluids and checking the IV pump when he hears the unmistakable wheeze and cotton-dry smack of a human who has woken up a few hours after having their intubation tube removed.Mr. Anderson coughs roughly and shifts in bed, still sluggish as the last of the sedation wears off through the ongoing haze of morphine. He opens his pale eyes, looks directly at Connor still sitting on a rolling stool at the bedside, and rasps one hoarse word, firm and resolute:“Fuck.”
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor
Comments: 61
Kudos: 424





	Mr. Henry Anderson: Room 298

**Author's Note:**

> This is a thread I've been writing on twitter since early January sometime, now converted over into this much more accessible format lol. It started out as a fluke, mostly, and was never intended to turn into a 30K fic...but here we are! HankCon strikes yet again. 
> 
> Full disclaimer: I am -not- a medical professional of any stripe, so please know there may be some inaccuracies here and there throughout. I didn't write this to flex my bottomless repertoire of textbook medical knowledge, I wrote it because Feelings, so while I'm not averse to some chill advice on how to make certain processes or procedures more realistic from actual healthcare professionals, I am Not going to field any condescending critiques about things being inaccurate. Thank you for understanding that this is free fanfiction, and that I am not here to supply medical advice. My endless thanks to all the actual RN's out there, you guys are shining stars.
> 
> Finally, big love to everybody who followed this as it unfolded on twitter! You guys are the best. Enjoy ❤

  
  
Mr. Anderson’s been under for nearly three days when he utters his first waking word.

It’s a miracle Connor was in the room to even hear it, really. He’s just finished hanging a new bag of fluids and checking the IV pump when he hears the unmistakable wheeze and cotton-dry smack of a human who has woken up a few hours after having their intubation tube removed. 

Mr. Anderson coughs roughly and shifts in bed, still sluggish as the last of the sedation wears off through the ongoing haze of morphine. He opens his pale eyes, looks directly at Connor still sitting on a rolling stool at the bedside, and rasps one hoarse word, firm and resolute: “ _Fuck._ ”

Connor stands and goes to get the cup of water he’d had ready on standby, but by the time he turns back around Mr. Anderson has already slumped back into his pillows and drifted off again. His vitals are just a little elevated and he seems restless even now, like he’s trying to fight against the pull of drugs. 

If Connor knows anything about this man, it’s that he’s strong; he’s proven that much by still being alive after taking three gunshot wounds at close range, two to the torso and one in his right leg. He lost enough blood before and after an ambulance ride that he certainly looked dead, those first few hours of touch and go. 

“You’ve really pulled through, y’know,” Connor murmurs as he tucks the thin blanket around Mr. Anderson’s sides, not entirely sure whether the man can hear him or not. “I’ve been rooting for you.” He doesn’t know why he says it, really, nor why he might’ve uttered a quiet, fleeting prayer at this very bedside three days ago.

It felt like the right thing to do, strangely, even if Connor doesn’t know Mr. Anderson from Adam. He hasn’t been to mass with his mother in seven years and quit saying nightly prayers long before that, but the request had startled out of him like a fleeing bird. 

_Save this man._

After arranging the bedding, Connor steps back to survey his work, and then, prodded by impulse, steps forward again to push some hair out of Mr. Anderson’s face. It’s lank and getting greasy—they’ll need to wash it soon when he properly wakes up.

Connor’s patient sighs low and heavy when he pulls his hand back but doesn’t open his eyes. Connor stands there and watches him a moment longer before turning to whisk through the door and down the hall. 

As it turns out, he misses Mr. Anderson’s next two waking words: a rasping, half-delirious _Thank you.  
  
_

+  
  


When Connor walks into the room the last hour before his shift ends, he’s surprised to find two heavy-lidded blue eyes gazing back at him.

“I don’t want any pity,” Mr. Anderson croaks first thing, like he’d been rolling it over like a line of rehearsed script in his mind for the past hour at least. “I shouldn’t even be here.” 

“I haven’t been pitying you,” Connor says primly, unfazed as he goes straight to get the jug of water he left at the bedside, arranging the straw and bringing it to his patient’s lips. “I’ve just been keeping you alive for the past 72 hours with the help of some multi-thousand dollar machines, is all.” 

“Damn shame,” Mr. Anderson says, taking a tentative sip anyway. He must’ve been thirsty. He wants to take the jug from Connor’s hands and hold it himself, but Connor pulls it away. 

“Slowly,” he says, ignoring the glare he gets and not budging until his patient takes another few sips. “I don’t want you upchucking on your clean gown I just put on this morning.”

Mr. Anderson colors some at that, expression turned quizzical. “You’ve seen me naked?” he groans, and then slumps further back into his pillows. “Shit.” 

“I’ve seen a lot more than that,” Connor says brightly as he goes to snap on a pair of rubber gloves. “How’s your pain level on a scale of 1 to 10?”

“I don’t know,” Mr. Anderson quips, sarcasm bleeding around his lingering exhaustion. “How many times did I get shot?” 

“Three more than is the surgeon general’s recommended amount,” Connor tells him, going to fetch the sterile dressings and supplies on the bedside table. “The recommended amount being zero.” 

“You’re a little spitfire, huh,” Mr. Anderson sighs, peering through his lashes at Connor as he stands at the bedside to pull the front of the hospital gown down. “Not even taking me to dinner or nothin’ first.” 

Connor doesn’t say anything toward that as he exposes Mr. Anderson’s chest and belly to the cool room. He’s careful with the medical tape keeping the gauze over the gunshot wound repairs, peeling it gently away from the skin while his eyes linger on a faded tattoo. 

The drain in Mr. Anderson’s chest looks mostly clean, but he pushes the bloody fluid through the tube anyway and prods around for good measure. “You never told me your pain levels,” he murmurs, mechanically changing out the dressings for fresh ones. 

“You never told me your name,” Mr. Anderson says, jaw working while Connor’s hands are still on him. He’s turned his face to look out the window at falling dusk instead of at his exposed body—embarrassed or uncomfortable probably, Connor figures. Most men usually are. 

“My name’s Connor,” Connor says, easily enough. It’s right there on his badge for the whole world to see. He presses down the edges of medical tape with careful fingertips and then moves lower to press around the wound above Mr. Anderson’s groin, which makes him hiss.  
  
“Tender?” Connor asks, peeling up the dressing to peek underneath. “I wouldn’t doubt it, the bullet cost you part of your liver.” 

“No, your hands are just cold,” Mr. Anderson grouses, finally tearing his gaze away from the window. He makes a pained but unreadable expression at his own body—not disgust, but something more akin to betrayal. “Probably for the best about my fuckin’ liver.” 

“It’ll grow back,” Connor says, smiling despite himself while he works. Is he in a good mood because it’s the last hour of his shift or something else altogether? “I’ll leave most of the details up to your surgeon when he swings by tonight to talk about what happened in the operating room.” 

“You can’t give me the quick n’ dirty cliff notes version?” Mr. Anderson grunts. His voice is still hoarse from being intubated, but Connor feels the rough deepness of it like a finger down his spine. Despite Hank’s size, he hadn’t expected his patient to sound like—this. 

“You’re not getting quick and dirty anything around here, Mr. Anderson,” Connor says even as the back of his neck burns. He finishes with the dressing changes and neatly ties up the front of the loose gown to hide Mr. Anderson’s torso from view again. 

He’ll save one scrap of his dignity and leave the catheter and urine bag for the night nurse, bless her soul. 

“Don’t call me that,” Mr. Anderson says, sniffing. “I mean—you don’t have to. Uh, shit.” He sighs, eyes closing again. “It’s normally either Lieutenant or Hank, but we’re not working together, so. Y’know. Just Hank is fine.” 

Connor peels his gloves off and pushes his glasses up his nose. “Okay, Just-Hank.” He breezes over to the computer terminal and plops down on the rolling stool to input some things in the patient portal. “Henry looked too stuffy for you, anyhow.” 

“Nobody’s called me that since my mother died,” Hank says, like there’s some small marvel in it. He goes quiet, then, and doesn’t speak again for a few minutes. Connor thinks he’s fallen asleep again until Hank’s voice abruptly asks, quieter than before, “Has my wife been here?”  
  
The question comes like a douse of ice water. 

“Not to my knowledge, no,” Connor says carefully, blinking as he looks up from his charting. He gazes at the lone flower arrangement on the bedside table and wets his bottom lip, trying to make light of things even if he oddly feels like some kind of fool, now. “Unless your wife was that tall and handsome Police Captain who brought flowers yesterday.”

“Shit—I meant, ex-wife now,” Hank sighs, reaching up with the hand taped with his IV to press a finger and thumb into both eye sockets. He rubs at them and then looks up blearily at Connor. “No, that was probably Jeff.” A small smile. “But we may as well be married by now.” 

“He’s a good guy,” Connor says, still feeling a little strangled by the momentary belief that Hank was married. He doesn’t breathe a word about how the Captain had sat for nearly an hour at Hank’s bedside, looking grim and exhausted himself, and pressed a wad of bills into Connor’s hand as he left. 

“Sorry,” he’d mumbled. “I know it’s not much compensation, but have lunch on me, a couple drinks after work or something. You’re doing a good job. I’ll be back when he wakes up.” 

And so the Captain had paid for the flowers, true enough—but Connor had been the one to go downstairs to the gift shop after his shift ended and pick them out.

He goes over to the arrangement now, sprucing up the yellow daisies and periwinkle forget-me-nots accented with touches of white and pink. It had felt—cheerful, more than morose. Connor didn’t want to look at roses or lilies every time he walked into the room and be reminded of death.

Hank’s looking at Connor’s hands in the floral arrangement when a grimace of pain washes over his face. He looks grey, drawn and pinched, and squeezes his eyes shut until the discomfort dulls into something more manageable. “Pain level at maybe an 8.5, kid,” he hisses out between his teeth. “Shit.” 

Connor raises an eyebrow at “kid” but doesn’t mention it—he’s been called a lot worse by patients through the years. He walks over to the IV medication pump and checks the readout again before pushing a few buttons. “We’ll give you a little more sauce now that you aren’t sedated. Your next two nurses and the doctor can gauge things as they go through the night.” 

Hank’s hands grapple weakly at the edge of his blanket while he takes slow, measured breaths. “You’re leaving?” he asks. “I only just showed up for the fuckin’ party.” 

“And I’ve been partying without you since 6:30 this morning,” Connor says, smiling at him. “Thursday is one of my days off, but I’ll be back on Friday.” 

Hank grunts at that, eyes wavering before he casts them somewhere toward the far wall. He looks a little unfocused now, so the pain medication must be working. “What if I’m gone by then? What if I die of boredom without you?” 

“I have good faith you’ll still be here,” Connor says, even if his stomach flips over on itself without warning. He pats Hank’s uninjured leg for good measure. “If you behave for Nurse Chloe maybe I’ll bring you a surprise. No promises, though.”

“A…surprise…?” Hank says, fading out again as his eyes close. He’s vaguely handsome, despite everything. Connor can look at him—even bedraggled, wounded, and in desperate need of a shower and shave and recognize that. Too bad Connor won’t see him once he’s well again.

“Have a good night, Mr. Anderson,” he says softly. He dims the overhead light and blows out a long sigh as he walks down the tiled hall to the nurse’s station. Another day on the job, another life kept hanging in the balance. He just can’t shake that something about this Hank feels different.  
  
  
  
  


Connor rises an hour late on Thursday morning. He feeds the cat and his fish while coffee brews, then rolls out his yoga mat on the lanai and does some stretches. He intends to have a relaxing, albeit productive day off—if only his mind didn’t directly stray to a certain gruff patient. 

He _almost_ calls the hospital for a welfare update. Almost. He gets five numbers dialed on his cell before he swears under his breath and drops the phone onto his couch. Working three days in a row was unusual, and maybe three twelves on the board had started getting to him.

He’s glad he did pick up that last shift, honestly. It was worth the reward in being there the moment Mr. Anderson finally woke up.

Connor does his best to focus on the day ahead and has a simple breakfast before throwing a load of laundry in to wash. He laces up into his running shoes and goes out into the brisk Detroit morning for a jog, then comes back and takes a long shower. 

After lunch he sits down at his desk to scroll through a few backed up emails but Trio the three-legged kitty has other ideas. He delicately bunny-hops into Connor’s lap and barricades the keyboard, purring up a storm as he raises his remaining front paw and touches his human’s arm. 

Connor sighs and gives up on his emails for now, pushing his fingers through the cat’s dark fur. It feels therapeutic for both of them, he supposes. Trio always seems to know where there’s something weighing on his mind.

“He said he had an ex but she hasn’t come to visit,” Connor says while Trio listens with his golden eyes narrowed into content slits. “The Captain—Jeff—came for an hour but nobody else has bothered. I don’t know if they’re too busy to care or if he’s just…got nobody in his life.”

Trio lets out a delicate mew and butts his head into Connor’s palm.  
  
“I only care because he could’ve _died_ ,” Connor insists, and then pulls his glasses off his face and sets them on the desk, rubbing his eyes. “Makes me wonder, is all. How people end up alone.”  
  
Trio’s fluffy tail lands somewhere near the mousepad and Connor stares at it for a few beats before his eyes brighten with a new idea. He pulls up google and types Hank’s legal name into the bar before blowing out a guilty breath and hitting the search button. 

Not much comes up, at first. No social profiles except an outdated Facebook account with a picture that looks at least ten years old, when Hank was a younger (and blonder) man. There’s nothing public beyond a few old fundraiser events. But what had Connor expected? 

Then he starts parsing through news articles—big Detroit drug busts, police publicity and events, a fresh story at the top about the DPD Lieutenant who was gunned down during a sting gone sideways. Connor keeps reading, and within five minutes he’s in tears. 

The little boy had been blond, too—curly-headed and sweet with his two front teeth missing. It all comes rushing out of Connor at once, like something that slips through his fingers when he tries to stop it. There’d been ice on the road, and the car had spun out. Cole had only just turned six.

That was three years ago and somehow it doesn’t matter how much time has passed. Connor’s only spent a half-hour at most with his patient while he was awake and yet the three days before that had been more than just work. He doesn’t know what to think as he mops tears off his face. 

He remembers, suddenly, what Hank had said coming up out of sedation. _I shouldn’t even be here._

Trio is only slightly ruffled as he hops into the floor when Connor quickly stands and goes to look for his shoes and coat. 

He doesn’t even really know what he’s doing even in the process of doing it—he throws some books and a crossword puzzle into a grocery tote, then a bar of fancy chocolate he got for his birthday in August. He combs his hair in a rush and snatches up his tablet and charger.

It’s not much, but it’s a little more than nothing and hospital television channels. Before he can second-guess himself Connor takes the stairs and grabs his car keys, swinging out of his townhouse into the afternoon with a brand new mission unfolding before him.  
  


+  
  


Connor is all business as he walks through the nurse’s lounge, fielding questioning looks and greetings with ease. Chloe has just gone on her meal break and smiles brightly even if she’s surprised to see Connor at work again on his day off. 

“Surprise,” he says, handing her a paper-wrapped apple pastry he picked up at the grocery store. Chloe takes it and breathes in the warm smell of cinnamon and sugar before she looks up with a tiny line drawn between her eyes. “Are you bribing me again?”

“Nope,” Connor says, “just came to babysit while you’re on lunch. How’s Mr. Anderson been for you?” 

Chloe pushes her salad aside to tear off a piece of pastry. “He’s pretty quiet,” she says with a shrug. “Hasn’t given me any trouble—respectful, if a little reserved. You know he was upstairs for mandatory psych eval for a week a few years ago?” 

They’re alone in the lounge except for somebody in the bathroom with the door shut, but Connor’s voice hushes into a whisper. “No, I—I didn’t,” he says. “How’d you figure that out? It wasn’t in his chart and I’ve read that thing inside out at least twenty times.” 

“Elijah told me,” Chloe says simply. “He was still doing clinical rotations but remembers him. Said his little boy died in an accident.” Connor’s expression immediately flattens and he takes a step back, not eager to hear anything else that came from the mouth of Dr. Kamski.

“Well, I’m keeping an eye on things,” he says meaningfully, hefting up his bag of goodies and heading for the door. “See you later, Chlo.”

Hank has to look twice when Connor walks into the room, like he hadn’t quite recognized him without his blue scrubs. He has a touch more color in his face than yesterday, but he’s still breathing shallowly and reclining in bed. “What’s all this?” he murmurs, brows raising a hair.

Connor beams the second he lays eyes on him. “How’s my star patient been doing?”

“Still kicking, unfortunately for everybody involved,” Hank rasps, ignoring the sharp look Connor shoots him. He watches as Connor unloads things one by one like he’s pulling them from Mary Poppins’ magic carpetbag. 

“You know what I said, Nurse Connor,” Hank murmurs, gaze wavering. “About you not pitying me.” 

“I know how it looks,” Connor says, biting into his lip. They _both_ know how it looks, and maybe a little white lie never hurt anybody. “…but I was bringing something to my friend in the lounge and had leftovers, so I figured you’d appreciate something hot in your belly. Good for your constitution.”

“You already ate?” Hank says, eyeballing the carton of soup in Connor’s hand. His hospital tray of runny apple sauce and a cold pork chop sits untouched on the rolling table by his bedside. He hadn’t even opened the pack of crackers or jello cup. 

“Yes sir,” Connor says. That’s another lie. “But if we crack open this chocolate bar I wouldn’t turn down a piece.” 

Connor is breaking off a piece of Toblerone and passing it into Hank’s hand when a tall woman in a grey coat steps through the doorway. She looks between Hank and Connor, an unreadable expression on her face, and then stops. “Sorry,” she says, stepping back. “I’ll give you a minute.” 

Hank’s eyes widen when he sees her. “Jen?” he croaks.

“No no no,” Connor getting up off his stool so fast it spins like a top. “I’m—it’s not what it looks like. I was just leaving. I’m Mr. Anderson’s—oh, I know this looks weird. I’m his ICU nurse.” 

Jen’s eyes swivel from Connor’s messy curls down to his sweater and jeans. 

“I’m off duty today,” Connor says sheepishly into the strange silence, and her gaze flicks up to meet his. Connor is six feet even and they’re almost exactly the same height. Her hazel eyes hold steady with his brown ones for a long beat.

"Oh," she says. "How generous of you."

"Jen," Hank says, sounding more tired than before. "It's...good, to see you." 

"Thanks for giving us a few minutes alone," Jen says in earnest this time, briefly touching Connor's arm. "I flew in from Virginia to see him."

"Of course," Connor says, slipping from the room and down the hall where the voices become muffled and indistinct. He thinks, guiltily, about the little boy with honey curls. He thinks harder about how Hank's ex hadn't come to see him until she knew for sure that he'd live.

Momentarily displaced, Connor wanders back down to the nurse’s station and drops into a chair by the monitors. It’s still only midday and he’ll be back in less than 24 hours, but somehow he doesn’t feel ready to head home. Maybe Richard would have time to talk if he called.

Chloe’s morning charting indicates they’re still waiting on word from the doctor about whether Hank is ready to transfer out of ICU and upstairs to the transitional care unit. He’s been stable since coming out of sedation and seems to be recovering better than anybody anticipated. 

Connor chats with some of the other nurses, picking their brains for status updates on his other patients. Mr. Brunson, room 292, passed away during the night at the ripe old age of 93. His family wasn’t there but the graveyard nurse walked in on his 2a.m. rounds and found him smiling.

“Not often you see one go like that once they’re here,” Simon says, shoveling a handful of m&m’s into his mouth. “When I was working palliative care at the hospice house they’d usually just…fade out. In ICU they tend to fight it until the very end. Linger, you know.”

Death is a part of Connor’s job. A natural thing; the one great universal unifier. He encounters it every day, in every corner of every room. He can’t even count the number of lives he’s seen blot out since he began his career nearly a decade ago. Somewhere along the line it started feeling commonplace, and he hates that. All of his patients were people with lives that should be cherished, no matter how flawed, no matter how small.

“I’ll have to send the Brunson family a card,” he says, reaching around the desk for a sticky note he can tape to the back of his phone as a reminder. “They were always sweet when they came to visit him. His daughter teaches at the Catholic elementary school I went to as a kid.”

On the overhead monitors, a notification goes off for room 298: Henry Anderson. Heart rate is a little more rapid than usual. Connor narrows his eyes and watches the display for a moment; Chloe still isn’t back from lunch, but he wonders if Jen is causing some trouble down the hall.

“I’ll check up on it,” he tells Simon. “Tell Chloe to meet me in 298 when she’s off break.”

A few yards from the door, Connor watches Jen walk out with her coat draped over her arm to meet him in the hall. “Hi, a moment?” she says, and Connor stops and looks up to listen even if he’s itching to go into the room and check on his patient.

“He’s breathing a little weird,” Jen says. “I hope he hasn’t picked up smoking again after he quit all those years ago. You guys run programs on helping people quit, right? Maybe you could—I don’t know, mention it to him.” She laughs. “God knows he won’t listen to me anymore.” 

Connor’s ears tune in faster than before. “What do you mean, his breathing?” 

Jen rolls a shoulder. “It just seems off,” she says. “He used to be in top shape, you know, when he first made Lieutenant. They called him Captain America.” She smiles fondly even if she’s not looking at Connor when she does it. “Oh, he hated that.” 

Inside the room, an alarm on the heart rate monitor goes off again. Further down the hall, Chloe rounds the corner and comes out of the nurse’s lounge with the last of her pastry in her mouth.

“If you’d excuse me,” Connor says, sidestepping into full view, and then flags Chloe down with some urgency. “Hurry. 𝘏𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘺.”

Even from a distance he can see the recognition dawn on her face. She takes another step and then breaks into a jog, blonde ponytail swinging behind her.

“What’s happening?” Jen asks abruptly, eyes widening. “What are you worried about?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Connor says firmly, disappearing into the room and pulling a fresh pair of gloves from the box on the wall. “Please stay outside until we call you.”

Hank’s expression would’ve sagged with relief when he sees Connor, if it hadn’t already been pinched with pain. When he speaks he sounds winded, wheezing a little around the words. 

“Listen, I’m not sure what’s—going on,” he says, straining. “But I’m having a…hard time, here. Can’t catch my fuckin’ breath.” 

“He’s having a heart attack,” Chloe says immediately. “I need some nitroglycerin.” 

“No, his lips look blue,” Connor says, and then looks down at the blood oxygen monitor even as Chloe rounds on him. “Shit—I bet you anything that right lung is in pneumothorax. We’ll have to page whoever’s on call.” 

Chloe blanches. “The doctor’s in surgery all morning, only the nurse practitioner is on call.” 

Connor feels his usual sense of calm fraying at the edges and has to steel himself. “Then I’ll call the nurse practitioner,” he says. “If they don’t send somebody in the next five minutes I’m going to scrub up and tube him myself right here in my goddamn Levis.” 

“Tube him!?” Chloe half-shouts. “You don’t even know the lung is collapsed.” 

Hank’s eyes widen as he coughs. His breathing is more labored than before, but even if he wanted to get out of bed he’d fall to the ground. His healing leg won’t support his weight. “So call them,” he says, staring down Connor with watery eyes. Something flashes there, and for a split second he almost looks afraid. “Feel like I’m fucking drowning.” 

Everything moves in the hazy smear of hyper-realistic time from there, like somebody turned the dial and cranked up the sharpness and brightness on reality. Connor blinks and suddenly he’s no longer in room 298, but on the call phone with the nurse practitioner and trying not to yell. 

The NP won’t tube Hank until she sees an x-ray, so she sends orders for Chloe and another nurse wheel him down to radiology. Connor fights the urge to scream about wasting time and risk the patient going into shock, but he knows deep down that she’s right. He walks alongside the bed the whole way down to the x-ray room, trying not to fret and doing it anyway. 

“I know it hurts, Hank, but you need to try and stay calm,” he says. “As soon as we get the imaging back we’ll know how to help you.” 

Chloe has always been friendly with Connor but gives him a withering look as they wheel out of the ICU and into the elevator. “Is there any real reason you’re taking special interest in all this?” she asks. “I can handle things perfectly fine on my own, Connor. You shouldn’t even be here today.”

The words sting like a strange slap. Connor blinks, standing outside the elevator with his mouth hanging open because it’s an honest question he doesn’t really have the answer to. Before he can think to answer the doors slide shut and the light dings, and he’s left standing alone in the foyer.

He jumps when Jen walks up and stands beside him. She looks oddly serene, even if it’s clear she’d been crying a few moments before. She crumples a tissue up in her fist and shakes her head. “I need to get back to the hotel,” she says, and then hands Connor a piece of paper. 

When he looks down at it he sees a phone number scrawled there. 

“Could you call me when you know what’s going on?” Jen asks. “I know I’d stay if I was a better person, but… it’s hard enough as it is, being in this place. I don’t have any good memories here.” 

Connor presses the piece of paper into the heart of his palm with his thumb and numbly nods. “I need to go home, too, I think,” he says, trying for a raspy laugh that doesn’t quite land right. “I’ll call you as soon as I know something.” 

Jen says a final word of thanks and shrugs back into her coat before walking further down the hall to the visitor elevator. “I’m glad you’re looking after Hank,” she says lightly, turning to glance back over her shoulder. “He needs somebody like that in his life again.” 

When she’s gone Connor goes to gather up some of what he left in room 298. He sets aside the chocolate and soup, mentally confirming to himself that Hank may want it later. But there’s nothing else he can do, now, except go home and wait. Hanging around to stay in Chloe’s hair only seems like a bad idea. 

“Text me when you hear something,” Connor says to Simon on his way out. He feels sick to his stomach, nauseated with both guilt and anxiety. “I’ll be back in tomorrow.” 

Connor drives home. Maybe that was a mistake, considering he feels like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin. But there seems to be nothing to do for it—he doesn’t want to go out, and staying inside feels like he’s slowly being smothered. 

In the end he drags a heavy blanket and pillow out onto the lanai and sprawls on the settee with Trio in his lap. The fresh, cool air helps some to clear his head, but he rereads the same few paragraphs of a book for nearly half an hour until his eyes grow heavy and slip shut.

Connor dozes, lulled some at last by semi-unconsciousness and Trio’s purrs. It grows colder the longer the afternoon wears on, but he’s warm under the blanket and not wanting for any other company. Nearly three hours have passed when his phone rings and makes him sit bolt upright.

Simon’s voice is on the other end, sounding like Simon as usual. “Well,” he says in lieu of a greeting. “They definitely tubed him.” 

“Is he alright?” Connor asks, feeling his heart leap into his throat. “Was it tension pneumothorax? Did he have blood in his lung? Jesus Christ, Simon, I’ve been worrying about this for nearly a week and Chloe thought he was having a heart attack—”

“He’s doing fine,” Simon says, gently cutting in. “Well, as fine as somebody can be in the ICU with a rubber tube between their ribs, but y’know how it is. He’s alert and annoyed, from what Chloe told me.” 

There’s a long beat of silence between them. Connor pulls in a breath, intending to speak. “Do you think—?”

“I wouldn’t show my face up here until Chloe clocks out at 7 and goes home,” Simon says straightaway. “She wasn’t, uh, too happy with you working the room earlier when you weren’t even on the board.” 

“So?” Connor says, perfectly aware of the defensiveness in his own voice. “I knew what was wrong, didn’t I? We got him the treatment he needed and that’s all that matters at the end of the day. Just because I’m not working doesn’t mean I stop being a healthcare provider.” 

Simon hums thoughtfully. “But still,” he says knowingly. “Don’t show up for visiting hours until after 7, okay? Even though I have no idea why you’re so hell-bent on hanging out with this guy.”

His next few words are more quietly measured. “If HR catches wind of anything weird, Connor, you know we can’t—”

“There’s nothing for HR to catch wind of,” Connor snaps, a little harsher than he’d intended. “All I’m trying to do is make him more comfortable and less lonely, alright? I’ve spent four days with the man and he’s had two visitors the whole time. His ex may not even stay in town long enough to give him a ride home from the hospital.” 

“O-kay then,” Simon quips on the other end of the line. “Your ass, not mine.” 

When Simon hangs up, Connor sits back and gathers his thoughts. He doesn’t want anybody perceiving some conflict of interest about his and Hank’s budding new…friendship? Camaraderie? He doesn’t know what to call it. Truly, he doesn’t even really know why he’s so invested in Henry Anderson’s health and happiness outside the fact that it feels like the right thing to do. 

Connor knows he should stay home and tend to his own life and needs. Maybe go to the car wash or pick up some groceries, for fuck’s sake. But he selfishly knows that if he waits until he goes into work tomorrow to see Hank, he won’t have time to sit and visit. He’ll be rotating between his two or three other patients the entire shift until he goes home again.

It’s odd, spending so much time with somebody but knowing so little about him. When Connor met Hank he was under heavy sedation, battered and bandaged and intubated. Now that he’s looked into those bright blue eyes, he wants to know so much more. To talk. And listen. 

He wonders what it is he’s feeling but then sweeps the thought aside as he stands to take Trio inside for their dinner. There isn’t any room to feel anything outside the bounds of professionalism: Connor is simply a nurse, and Hank is his patient. 

He picks up his phone and adds Jen’s number into his contacts but doesn’t message her just yet. It’ll be easier to give her more information once he gets to the hospital and gauges the situation for himself. This, too, seems selfish in a way—but Connor has already made up his mind.

The next two hours go by with the quickness of a passing glacier. Trio perches on his tower by the sliding glass door and eyeballs Connor skeptically from his vantage point seven feet in the air. He blinks owlishly, seeming cognizant of the anxious energy making Connor’s stomach quiver.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Connor says, peering over the tops of his glasses. “Have you got something to say about Florence Nightingale syndrome, Mr. Three Leggies? Didn’t think so.”

Connor is already in his boots and coat again when the clock strikes seven. Sometimes the shift change drags behind depending, so he gives himself time to dally as he drives back up to the hospital. The sun has long since set and the Detroit skylinec sparkles under cover of darkness.

Chloe and Simon have both been relieved by the night shift when he walks onto the ward with his visitor’s pass. Lucy smiles despite the peculiar tilt of her left eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything other than hello as she watches Connor walk down the hall to room 298. 

The lights are dimmed and the TV isn’t playing when he peeks his head around the corner. Hank is in bed, quiet and still. The slatted blinds let murky yellow street lamp light cut across his legs in bars of dirty gold. He shifts and clears his throat when Connor walks in, the only indication he’s awake.

“Back again, huh?” he murmurs, still hoarse but not unkind. “Thanks again for the soup.”

Connor wants to fluff Hank’s pillows and check all his vitals but restrains himself for the most part. He takes the empty chair at his bedside and pulls a loose thread hanging off the hospital blanket. The drainage tube still in Hank’s side peeks out from under his open gown and leads to a container on the floor. 

“How are you feeling now?” Connor asks, swallowing thickly. It’s suddenly hard to think of anything else in the dim room with only the slow beep of machines to keep them company. 

“Better, thanks to you,” Hank says. “But now I get to sit here on my ass a few more days than planned, as it turns out. Guess that’s what happens when your lung turns into a glorified whoopee cushion.”

“Jen left me her number,” Connor says. “She asked me to let her know how you were doing.”

Hank sighs, line of his throat bobbing in place. “She knows I could call her myself, right? I just need a charger for my fuckin’ phone.”

“But _were_ you?” Connor asks, watching him knowingly. “Going to call her.”

Hank tries to laugh but winces and gasps in pain when he does. “What, are you some kind of psychic?” he rasps. “Okay—Jesus Christ. You got me there.”

They sit in silence for a few more beats. At the same moment Connor stands and says, “Let me help you wash your hair, there should be a clarifying cap in here—” Hank draws in a pinched breath and says, “I don’t want to be here. This is the last place on fucking earth I want to sit and waste away in.”

Connor freezes, standing at the foot of Hank’s bed. “You aren’t wasting away,” he says. “We’re helping you get better, but it takes time. Complications happen.”

“You don’t understand.” Hank looks away toward the window, and when he does Connor can see that his eyes are wet. He raises a hand to wipe roughly across his face like he’s trying to force the emotion away. “Forget I said anything,” he sighs. “These drugs got me too fucked up.”

Connor gathers the shampooing cap from the box of care supplies and takes it out of the wrapper. He doesn’t bother with gloves this time, though he does wash his hands before returning to the bedside. Hank watches him through the half-dark, wary. 

“What’s that?” he asks, and then squares his jaw when he realizes. “Connor—look. I—it’s bad enough as it is, being an invalid like this. You don’t have to do this shit.” 

“And I don’t mind one bit,” Connor says doggedly, but Hank doesn’t look convinced. “It’ll make you feel better. And if I don’t do it tonight, I’ll just come in and do it tomorrow when you can’t get rid of me as easily.”

Hank snorts. “You should just buzz my whole head. Be less trouble in the long run.” 

“There’s a thought,” Connor says, just to indulge in the banter of it. He thinks about turning on the overhead light but doesn’t bother—the fluorescents would ruin the peculiar spell cast across this otherwise plastic and sterile room. It feels more…relaxed, this way. Intimate. 

It takes another moment but Hank finally relents. “Let’s just get it over with, kid,” he says, closing his eyes. Connor reaches up to push the lank strands of hair away from his temples, nails lightly grazing his scalp as he smoothes them back. Hank sighs, just a soft, almost inaudible sound.

“This isn’t my favorite way to do this,” Connor says, faintly apologetic as he tucks Hank’s hair up into the shampoo cap. “But it’s the easiest, considering we don’t want to move you around too much.” He gently massages his fingers into the top of the cap, working from the front to the crown of Hank’s head and then down around his ears and the nape of his neck.

Slowly but surely, Hank relaxes enough that some of the tension bleeds from his jaw and shoulders. Neither of them say much, and maybe it’s better that way. Connor does as thorough a wash as he can and then pulls the cap off, revealing Hank’s very damp but much cleaner hair.

“I think the silver look is pretty dashing, if I say so myself,” Connor tuts as he dampens a cloth with warm water and comes back to massage it around Hank’s scalp. “It makes your eyes stand out. If we can squeeze in a little shave I bet you’d be our resident knockout on the whole floor.”

“What, am I on an episode of that Queer Eye show?” Hank says with a snort. “You sure know how to flatter an old man.”

Connor shakes his head, careful with his movements around Hank’s ears. “You aren’t _old_ , you’re distinguished. Big difference.” When he finishes, he picks up a small comb he’d had set aside and starts pulling it through some of the tangles, gently working from the ends up. 

When the comb’s teeth graze over Hank’s scalp he makes a low sound deep in his chest, a content sigh like an old hound dog. Connor feels his face warm but doesn’t stop his combing, but Hank seems to realize he’d groaned aloud and starts fidgeting with the blanket under his hands.

“So, play it to me straight here,” he says, voice gruff but assertive. “Have you got somebody in hot water with the DA or ulterior motives to butter me up like this?”

Connor’s hands stop and lower as he blinks rapidly behind his glasses. “Wh—what do you mean?”

“I hate to burst any bubbles, but I don’t have as many good friends in high places as most people would think,” Hank says. “I still make less than 80 grand a year and pay my fuckin’ taxes on all of it. So if you were looking for a greased wheel along the chain of command somewhere, this ain’t it.”

Connor sets his comb down with a small click on the bedside table. “Hank,” says. “I’m helping you because it’s my _job_ to make sure you’re comfortable while you’re healing. I take care of all my patients with as much empathy and kindness as I can manage.” 

Hank works his jaw in place, avoiding Connor’s eye. “But do you come in to see your other patients on your day off, is what I’m asking.” 

Flustered, Connor tries to grapple for the right words. “Well, no,” he says, because that’s the truth. “But I—I just, I feel like this situation is different becau—”

“Because nobody but an overworked Police Captain and my ex give enough of a shit to come up here and make sure I’m still breathing?” Hank finishes. “A real charity case, then. That makes me feel like a million goddamn bucks.” 

Connor grits his teeth and takes a step back. “You’re being unfair, to both me and yourself. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be here.” 

Hank’s slowly growing weary again, speech slurring some at the edges. His pain medication pump must’ve just hit the IV. “Why do you want to be here, Connor? Why me.” 

It’s a tight spot to be in. Connor himself doesn’t even really understand why, fully—at least not just yet. But as much truth as he knows tumbles out into the cool air between them, landing like dropped stones on the sheets in Hank’s lap. 

“You don’t deserve to be alone,” he says, hating how his eyes burn at the corners when he says it. “You may think you do but—that’s bullshit, Hank. You know it is. And maybe I don’t really know you and everything you’ve been through, but I want to get to know you. If you’ll let me.” 

Hank’s eyes swivel and then flick up. The square cut of his jaw works in place, mouth pinched into a firm line that twitches on one side. Maybe he wants to haul back and deck Connor in the face. Or maybe he’s trying not to cry. 

“Alright,” Hank says, so low it’s almost a whisper. “Okay.”

Connor could collapse from relief flooding his limbs but tries for a small smile instead. Hank doesn’t quite reflect it back to him, but he clears his throat and says, roughly, “You watch the Pistons?” 

“Sometimes,” Connor says. And then, “There’s a game on tonight.”

The TV gets turned on and tuned over to the sports broadcast. Light flickers on the dark wall behind them and makes Hank’s blue eyes look violet, but things seem easy, at least for the moment. They talk basketball and not much else, but if it’s a peace offering, Connor will take whatever he can get and run.

All in all, it’s a start. 

When he gets home that night, he shoots Jen a text with a small update: _Hank’s right lung collapsed. He’s got a tube in place to help it stay inflated for a couple days at least while we monitor the wound site. Seems to be doing well despite everything._

Her answer dings back within ten minutes. _Glad to hear he’s feeling better. Scared me yesterday…sorry about that. It’s a good sign he hasn’t managed to run you off yet._

Connor smiles down at his phone. _I’m not so easily intimidated._

 _Good luck,_ Jen texts back. _I’ll swing by tomorrow before my flight leaves. I think he’s in good hands._  
  


+  
  


Hank makes sure to comb through his hair and sit himself up before Connor clocks in and makes his first rounds in the morning. He’s been awake for an hour already but perks up even more when he hears a familiar voice laughing down the hall less than twelve hours after it last left.

It’d be nice to get up and have a wash and take a leak in the bathroom on his own steam, but for now he rubs a finger over his teeth and swishes with some mouthwash before spitting it in last night’s melted cup of ice chips. The sad thing is, he’s probably looked and felt worse than this—and that wasn’t even when he was in the fuckin’ hospital.

Connor doesn’t come alone when he breezes into the room, heralding in a cafeteria worker with a breakfast tray. The smell of bacon and toast hits his empty stomach like a drum and he realizes for the first time in days that he’s actually looking forward to eating something more hearty.

“Morning, Mr. Sunshine,” Connor quips once the orderly has gone again, going about his sunrise duties as he switches out the medication in Hank’s antibiotic pump and checks his drip. “How’s your appetite? Figured we’d take a step up from soup and crackers and see how you do.” 

Connor prattles on about this and that, reminding Hank that the physical therapist is supposed swing by sometime today in regards to the knee that took some orbital bullet shrapnel, but he’s not really listening. Connor practically glows in the daybreak coming in through the blinds, backlit with a fiery orange halo when he stands and the morning sun flares behind his head. It’s a stark difference between the dark room they were sitting in just last night. Hank doesn’t even realize he’s staring until Connor pops the lid off his breakfast tray and starts trying to cut his sausage links.

“I can butter my own toast, hot shot,” Hank grumbles, far from annoyed as he reaches out a hand for the fork and knife. “You already do too fucking much, give it here.” 

Connor drops down onto his rolling stool and slowly swerves from side to side. Hank feels tired just looking at him sometimes, given the godforsaken amount of energy he has in the mornings.

“Thank fuck Ben offered to take Sumo while I’m laid up,” Hank mutters, rubbing around his eyes while Connor changes the dressing around his chest tube. “I’d feel like shit leaving him at the boarding place for more than a few days. He’s getting old but I still can’t keep up like this.” 

Connor stops spinning and gives Hank his full attention. “Who’s Sumo?” 

“My dog,” Hank says, popping a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth. Fuck, it tastes better than hospital food has any right to. “St. Bernard. Big ol’ doofus. He’ll be ten in just a couple months.” 

Connor frowns and looks strangely pitiful for a full-grown man. “He must be wondering where you are,” he says. “My brother knows that if I ever wind up in a hospital he’s sneaking my cat past security in a duffel bag.” 

Hank makes an amused sound in the back of his throat. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a cat kinda guy,” he says. 

“Most people don’t,” Connor says, eyes flashing with good humor. “I’m apparently too eager and willing to please.” 

“Huh, I never would’ve imagined,” Hank says lightly. _No fucking kidding_ , he thinks to himself. But he still can’t stop the dumbass smile tugging around his mouth. 

“Trio found me, not the other way around,” Connor says with a shrug. The corners of his eyes crinkle when he grins, bashful, palms upturned. “I have a soft spot for creatures great and small, suppose you could say. We just needed each other.”

Hank bites into a piece of sausage and immediately the grease makes him feel a little too green around the gills. He sets his fork down and wipes across his mouth, breathing deeply through his nose as nausea rolls over him in a wave. Connor looks concerned for a moment, but Hank shakes his head and grits his teeth. 

“Too fast on the draw,” he says behind is fist. “Hubris got me again. Go ahead and have at it if you’re hungry.” 

Connor eyeballs the plate, still mostly full, and sighs before picking up the other half of Hank’s abandoned toast. Hank expects him to take a delicate bite, but he folds the bread in half and stuffs it in his mouth before going to rinse his hands slip on a fresh pair of gloves. 

“Sorry if I pushed before you were ready to stomach something heavier,” Connor says, coming back over to pull Hank’s gown aside to peer at his chest tube. “Everybody’s different—I’m just thankful you’re still eating at all. Nobody wants a feeding tube when they’re wide awake.” 

“I’m fine,” Hank says, and then hisses lightly when Connor’s cold fingers gently press around the more sensitive skin under his armpit. “Did you walk out of the womb being a real Mother Theresa type or is this something you’ve grown into over the years?” 

Connor laughs, bright and loud. Hank momentarily forgets his nausea because the hair on the back of his arms prickles hearing that sound—rare and precious as a wedding day church bell, as his mother might’ve once said. 

“I used to be the kid who killed ants with a magnifying glass,” Connor says guiltily, eyes flicking up to Hank’s face and then back down at the bandage he’s changing. “I don’t think my humanitarian side jumped out until I was almost finished with high school. My brother used to think I was going to be some ruthless corporate mogul, pouring toxic sludge into the water supply.” 

Hank blinks and chuckles himself, taken aback. “Uh, well, that’s surprising,” he says. “I’m glad you wound up doing this instead. You’re—you’re really good at it.” 

“Thank you,” Connor says, more shyly this time. He keeps his eyes cast low behind his glasses as he checks the wound sites on Hank’s chest and abdomen, pressing the stitched place a bullet had torn through inked skin. “Do you think you’ll get your tattoo touched up after the scar heals?”

Hank clears his throat and looks at the ceiling. “Nah,” he says. “That thing’s been there so long, I hardly even notice it anymore. Bullet wound just adds character.” 

“It does make you look pretty…rugged,” Connor says, and then looks like he swallowed a frog once that last word leaves his mouth. Hank narrows his eyes and watches the tips of Connor’s ears flush raspberry pink. “Not that—not that it’s a bad thing, of course. Uhm.”

 _Oh, so it’s like that_ , Hank thinks to himself. _I’ve just been too fucked up to notice before now._

He lowers his voice some, a deep rumble but not quite a growl. “You’re sweet on rugged types, huh?” 

They both look up, startled, when two knuckles rap on the slightly open door. “Hank?” Jen’s voice says from the hall. “Are you up and mostly decent yet?”

“ _Shit_ ,” Hank says under his breath, and then raises his voice a hair. “Mostly,” he says. “Give me a second.” 

Connor pulls his hands back and Hank tugs up his gown in a hurry. The irony of trying to cover himself in front of the woman he had a child with but letting his spring chicken nurse get a whole eyeful isn’t lost on him, but he doesn’t have time to analyze that too deeply right now.

“Connor,” he says pointedly, waiting until brown eyes slowly swerve to meet his. “I—listen. It’s okay. Just…it’s okay.” His voice sounds senseless to his own ears, almost like gibberish, and Connor stares at him like a deer caught in the headlights for a few long beats. Finally, he nods. 

“Hit the call button if you need anything,” he says gently, covering Hank’s breakfast tray and taking it with him on his way out. “I’ll be just down the hall.” He pulls open the door and smiles at Jen even if it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and then he’s gone. 

Hank watches his ex walk in, this time dressed in track pants and sneakers under her coat. Jen had always been a good-looking woman—not so much lovely as she is handsome. Her wavy brown hair is cut into a bob tucked behind her ears, features strong even without makeup.

“When’s your flight?” he asks, eyeballing what are obviously traveling clothes. 

“In two hours, so I’m headed straight to the airport after I leave here,” Jen says on a sigh, sinking down onto the stool Connor had only vacated a few moments before. “David sends his well wishes.” 

“Ah, David,” Hank says, and then doesn’t know what else he could possibly say. “Good guy, from what I can remember.” 

Jen smiles but then lightly touches her own temples with her thumb and ring finger. “Listen, Hank—”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Hank says, trying not to bristle even if his voice sharpens. “I’m still here. Life goes the fuck on. You don’t owe me anything more than what you’ve already done by being here.” 

“They told me you may not make it through the first few days,” Jen blurts out. “There were too many complications that could happen, and then—when I finally flew all the way up here, just to look at you one more time, I thought I was going to end up staying for your funeral.” 

She starts crying, then. Not a loud, gasping cry—but the tears still run down her face, crystalline and silent. Hank doesn’t know how she has any left to cry after what they’ve been through.

“Don’t,” he pleads. “You know I can’t stand it.” 

Jen shakes her head and fishes a tissue out of her purse, wiping around her eyes and nose. “I know you think you can take care of yourself, and then you go and nearly get shot to death,” she says, voice wobbling. “I was haunted by that when we were married—wondering if you were going to come back home whenever you left for a shift. Trying to accept the inevitability of it happening. That’s no way to live.” 

Hank watches her for a long beat, eyes steely. “What did you want me to do?” he asks her. “It’s my job, Jen. It’s what I had to do to keep the house, put food on the table. I couldn’t just cut line and sinker and fuck off doing Christ knows what else when we had a newborn ba—” 

“Stop,” Jen says firmly, stern enough that Hank does. “I’m sorry, I—I didn’t come here to argue. I just wanted to see that you’re doing better.”

Hank croaks out a laugh. “Other than the horse tranqs they’re pumping into me by the gallon and the tube keeping my lung inflated like a goddamn balloon, I guess I’m hanging in there,” he says. It sounds unkind, but he’s been cooped up for too long. More than that, he’s jealous Jen gets to board a plane and leave. 

“Connor’s been taking good care of me,” he says abruptly without really knowing the words were coming out until he hears them. “He’s—uh. He’s good, like that.” 

Jen nods. She’s not crying anymore, but there’s a peculiar light in her eyes that makes Hank nervous, like she may know something he doesn’t. “I feel better about going back to Virginia with him here to help you,” she says, meeting Hank’s eyes. 

Hank suddenly wants to look away but doesn't. Whatever truth they have left is already laid bare between them, open and raw. Jen could always read him like a book.

“Hang on to that something good, Hank," she says at last, gathering her purse up. "Don’t fuck up and let it go.” 

Jen squeezes his hand and Hank squeezes back; it’s as good as any unspoken promise. “See ya around, JJ,” he says, lapsing back into her old nickname for a moment. “Thanks for coming up to make sure I hadn’t kicked the bucket. Close call, this time.” 

She looks tired but smiles anyway. “You’re too stubborn to give in that easily,” she says, and then takes a step toward the door. “Text me when they send you home so I don’t have to hound Connor about it.” 

Hank blinks as his jaw falls open. “You have his phone number?” 

“Like I said,” Jen says with a half-wink, already halfway out the door. “Text me yourself or I’ll do something drastic. Bye, Hank.” 

When she’s gone and Hank’s alone again, he draws in as deep a breath as he can without his side aching. The emptiness of the sterile white room is too loud again, the four walls smaller than before. He wonders how much he’d have to pay somebody to sneak in a case of beer.

Going off the stuff cold turkey hadn’t been…easy. And truth be told, it was probably for the best Hank was sedated three days before he woke up so the sweats could start without him. He feels better now—at least as much as he can after taking three rounds—but the craving hasn’t gone far.

He clicks on the TV but doesn’t watch it, distracted by the stray whiskers on his cheeks and neck. There’s a toiletry kit by the bed and a cup of tepid water within reach, and by the time Connor pops back in Hank’s soaped up his face and started shaving with a plastic disposable.

Connor squawks in horror, as if old war vets hadn’t once spent their deployment shaving out of a tin mess cup in a shard of mirror while shells exploded in the distance. By all means, Hank’s got it easy, though it’s harder to follow the grain on his throat without a real light and mirror. 

“You’re going to cut yourself,” Connor says, snapping on only one glove as he marches over to examine Hank’s work. He tuts and goes to the bathroom, slapping on the faucet and letting it run. When he comes back he’s carrying a fresh cup of warm water that lightly steams in the air.

“What’re you gonna do with that?” Hank grunts, pausing with his razor held mid-air. 

“Help you fix this, of course,” Connor says, and patiently waits for Hank to finish his left cheek before he holds out his hand for the pink disposable. “You’re still on too much pain medication to operate heavy machinery,” he says, cracking a smile when Hank swears under his breath.

He lays back against the pillow propped behind his head, throat bobbing some in place. “You’re not gonna Sweeney Todd me or anything, are you?” he asks, trying for a laugh. Real fucking smooth. 

Connor rolls his eyes and swirls the razor around in his warm water before lathering up the soap again, mostly unaffected. “Don’t worry, I’m an old pro,” he says, and then unexpectedly bends low and leans closer to Hank with his face turned at an angle. “Smooth as a baby’s bottom.” 

His eyes widen when Hank surprises him by lifting up a hand to swipe his fingers over the height of Connor’s cheekbone. “You don’t say,” he murmurs, and then freezes when their eyes meet. 

“Uh,” Connor says, straightening up quickly. “Yes. Well, just—tip your head back for me again, like that, and I’ll—be very careful, obviously. There’s nothing to it.” 

Hank counts approximately thirteen and a half ceiling tiles and lets Connor get through two decent razor strokes before he blurts out, “What, are we just not gonna talk about the whole herd of elephants in the fuckin’ room?” 

Connor looks away and chews the corner of his lip, and then Hank feels like shit. “Oh—damn,” he says. “Sorry, that was…uh, well. That was out of line.” He tucks his hands into his lap and out of sight, face burning. “Hands to myself. Shit, I’m sorry—I wasn’t thinking straight.” 

Silence awkwardly settles around them for a few beats before Connor resumes his shaving, precariously close to Hank’s Adam’s apple. “Your doctor says that if we remove your chest tube tomorrow, we’ll be transferring you to the transitional ward upstairs,” he says mildly. “You won’t be under my care anymore.” 

Hank blinks, trying to decipher if that’s a threat or a lament. Thirty years on the force and suddenly he can’t read the inflection in Connor’s voice. “What’s that mean?” he asks, feeling dumb. “Guess you’ll finally be glad to get rid of me.” 

“Not at all,” Connor says, placing a fine finger under Hank’s chin to gently tip his head back again. “But I’ve got to admit it’ll definitely be nice, not having that conflict of interest hanging over our heads anymore.”

All the moisture wicks out of Hank’s mouth in an instant.  
  
“Are you hitting on me?” he rasps. He doesn’t want to admit his world is spinning, but it’s definitely wobbling a little at the fucking edges.

“Of course not, Mr. Anderson,” Connor says, eyes sparkling some even under the terrible fluorescents. “That would be inappropriate.” 

Hank snorts out a breathy laugh and cocks an eyebrow, staying still as Connor wets the razor again and comes back to finish up his neck. “How do you know I’m single?” he asks. “What if my girlf—my boyfr—my _partner_ walks in the door right this second? What are you gonna do.”

“First, probably tell them to wait in the hall while I finish up with my patient’s care,” Connor says primly. “Second? Break up with them on your behalf since they apparently haven’t thought to show their face up here since you were admitted with life-threatening injuries.” 

“Damn,” Hank says. “I like a take-charge attitude.” 

“That’s a nice way of saying overbearingly bossy,” Connor says with a sweeter smile, stepping back to admire his work from over the rims of his glasses. “There, all done. Primed and ready for the cover of GQ.” 

Connor brings back a damp towel and hands it to Hank so he can daub around his jaw and throat. He thinks while he tidies up, a crease drawn between his brows. “What about you?” he asks hesitantly. “How do I know you’re…single?” 

“Remember what I said about inappropriate lines of conversation?” Connor says, not unkindly. Hank gapes at him, dumbfounded, until Connor laughs and caves. “You can take my word for it,” he says. “But don’t let anybody else know the position’s open. I’ve had to strong-arm Elijah Kamski with creative lies for the past three years; I could write a book.” 

The room suddenly seems a bit dimmer. Hank blinks, recognizing the name immediately, and looks away to disguise this fact. “Oh,” he says, working his jaw. “Huh. Why don’t you just tell that guy to fuck off?” 

“Easier said than done,” Connor says as he continues checking monitors and tubes around the room. He hangs a new bag of fluids and then glances down at Hank’s flattened expression before a vaguely startled look dawns on his previously cheerful face. 

Hank clenches his teeth together, not feeling too conversational anymore. Connor keeps his hands busy and suddenly doesn’t have much to say for himself, either, until a long minute of silence later the physical therapist walks in and introduces himself as Josh. 

As Josh sits down on the stool at Hank’s side and starts going through the process of introducing himself and their game plan for active recovery, Hank watches from the corner of his eye as Connor quietly slips from the room without a word or backward glance edgewise.   
  


+  
  


It’s not until later that evening, in the hour before Connor clocks out for the night, that something comes to a head. 

Ever since their shaving session earlier in the day Hank has felt…well, more distant than usual, maybe. Certainly tight-lipped and more selective with his words. Okay: maybe he’s been being a fucking asshole, if you want to put it lightly, and Connor is determined to figure out why. 

“Was it something I said?” he asks, standing at the foot of Hank’s bed with his hands hitched up on his hips. Eleven hours into a twelve and he feels halfway like death on two feet, but he can’t let Hank know that. “Whatever it is, I don’t think it necessarily deserves the cold shoulder treatment.”

Hank grunts and pushes roasted potatoes around his dinner tray before giving up and setting his fork down. “Listen, Connor, I—I can’t talk to you like this,” he says, gesturing at Connor’s scrubs. “It feels too clinical, you know? Like everything you say is going to end up on a clipboard.” 

Connor feels his eye twitch and has to resist the urge to press a finger against it. “You’re acting like a child,” he says in a measured tone. “How many days have I been taking care of you now? A week tomorrow? Going out of my way, even, to make sure you’re comfortable and fed.” 

That makes guilt waver across Hank’s face like a drawn shade. “When Josh came in earlier, it occurred to me that our relationship may not look entirely professional to third party onlookers,” he says. “I just don’t want any flack coming back on you if people start paying closer attention.” 

“You weren’t even talking to me when Josh came in,” Connor says, narrowing his eyes. “So don’t feed me that—it was something I did or said before then.” He knows, deep down, exactly what it was. The proof of that is beading into pinpricks of sweat between his shoulder blades, an unbearable heat like a fiery slap, but Connor can’t be the one to say it first. Hank can’t know that he knows—about Kamski, about the psych watch, about the little boy, about any of it.

They stare each other down for a long moment, and then Hank pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. He turns to reach into the bedside drawer, the IV tubing in his hand smacking around as he digs out his wallet. When he produces two crumpled twenty-dollar bills, he holds them out for Connor. 

“I’d rather talk tonight, if you want to go home and shower and get yourself something for dinner,” he says. “You don’t have to come back, but I mean—you know where I’m staying.” It’s meant to be a more lighthearted comment, but all Connor hears is a tired and lonely man. 

“I still don’t see why we can’t talk about this now,” Connor mutters, but nonetheless slowly steps around to take the bills from Hank’s hand. He stares at the money for a beat and sniffs before looking up. “What sounds good?” 

“That’s up to you,” Hank says, tipping his head to one side. Some of the blue ice in his gaze has melted away, even if he seems guarded. “Surprise me.”   
  
  


\+ + + + +  
  
  


The sun has already long since set on Detroit’s skyline when Connor finally slips behind the wheel of his car. He’d thrown his coat on over his scrubs before walking out into the parking garage, and Hank’s $40 feels oddly heavy in his left breast pocket where his badge is clipped.

Connor takes his lanyard clip off and cranks his car before staring at his own face there on the plastic badge: smiling, handsome, bright, eager. He’d had to get another photo taken three years before when the hospital merged with a new insurance company. 

He wonders about Cole Anderson, and if he’d still been alive on the morning the new badge was printed. Eating cheerios at a kitchen bar, little sneakers swinging above the floor as Hank walked in with a coffee cup in hand and leaned over to kiss the top of the little boy’s head. Connor hates how easy it is to imagine.

Forty bucks is too much for a paper sack of greasy takeout food or even pizza just for two, so Connor drives to his favorite ramen place in town and orders two bowls to go. He sits at the counter with his phone in hand but watches curls of steam waft out of the kitchen while the chef cooks and somebody tosses something in a wok. He wonders what it would be like if Hank were sitting here beside him instead of that sterile room on the ICU ward.

They’re going to take the chest tube out and move him upstairs by mid-morning tomorrow. Hank will no longer be under Connor’s care, and from that point forward—he’s not sure what will happen. Hank can still have visitors aplenty in the transitional care unit, but what happens when he’s ready to be discharged in a few days’ time? Maybe he’ll walk out of Connor’s life and never be seen or heard from again.

Thinking about the possibility makes Connor wince with a deep pang of foolishness on top of loss he hasn’t even suffered, at least not yet. But then he thinks about the gentle blueness of Hank’s eyes, the way his lank hair had shone in silver waves after a much-needed washing. Connor wants to touch it again, drag his fingers along Hank’s scalp and through the shaggy length.

His face flushes once he realizes he’s let his mind wander. Must be the warmth from all the steam, he figures.

The cold wind stings like a slap as Connor walks out with his bag of noodles and steamed pork buns. He drives home and feeds Trio before taking a five-minute shower, which he only really does to rinse the telltale smell of hospital soap off and to be able to say he did if Hank asks.

Standing in his closet, he pulls on his softest sweater and a pair of jeans before combing the damp curls on top of his head into place. Thinks about daubing on some cologne and the nice wristwatch he got from Richard last Christmas and then laughs when he realizes he’s treating this like a date.

Visitation hours have been over for nearly two hours by the time he arrives back at the hospital. Connor parks on the visitor level and hefts his bag of ramen out before walking around to the access door by the cafeteria. He doesn’t look up at the camera pointed downward at him as he swipes his badge and lets himself in to bypass the security officer at the front desk.

The main hall on the ICU ward is blissfully empty when Connor steps out of the elevator. He doesn’t dally this time, simply makes a swift beeline straight for Hank’s room and shuts the door behind him. Shift change happened about an hour and a half ago, so he should be good for another hour at least before the night nurse on duty starts making their regular rounds again.

Hank genuinely looks surprised when Connor walks in again. But his eyes light up and he lets out a silly wolf whistle, and in that moment Connor’s thankful he got something better than pizza and managed to clean up a bit. 

“How is it you always look like you walked out of a $10 magazine, even when you’re wearing scrubs?” he ponders aloud, watching as Connor situates the rolling table and then pulls his stool back over to sit down before opening the takeout bag. “Damn, whatever that is smells good.”

Even though their ramen has gone lukewarm it’s still delicious, and the pork buns are a touch soggy but undoubtedly the best in town. Hank eats heartily but carefully, gaze flicking between Connor and the turned-down television every few moments. He chances a bite of hard-boiled egg and manages to get it down without going queasy, but by the time his bowl’s halfway finished he’s had enough.

Connor’s chopsticks reach over to pluck a piece of pork from his bowl and he nudges it closer, encouraging. The spicy broth has bought a little more color back to his face, and the apples of his cheeks almost seem peachy-pink. Connor can’t help but remark on it, pleasantly full and warmer himself.

“You look better,” he says, and means it. 

“I feel better,” Hank answers right away, clearing his throat some. “Thanks for—uh. For coming back again. Especially because I was being a dick earlier.” 

Connor sighs but shakes his head, eyes sparkling. “You’re nothing I can’t handle, Mr. Anderson.” 

The light flush on Hank’s face darkens some. “Jeez,” he says. “There you go with all that again.” There’s a long stretch of quiet, and then Hank fumbles around with the TV remote until he manages to hit the mute button. His eyes meet Connor’s and then waver in place.

“Listen,” he says, “I don’t know why I thought we could sit down and hash stuff out like you’re my fuckin’ shrink or something. It feels weird and it’s also…not fair, no matter how you spin it, Connor. Unloading a bunch of shit on you like this.” 

Connor scoots the barest half-inch closer. “I’m here because I want to listen,” he says. “I could’ve just as easily taken my ramen home to my warm apartment and told you to go pound salt, you know. Let you eat your noodles by yourself.” He smiles, swiveling some in place. Trying to look as open and willing as he feels. “But I’m here. So if you’ve got something to tell, I’m all ears.”

“That’s the thing, kid—there’s too much to tell,” Hank says on a sigh, sounding unconvinced on both their counts. “I wouldn’t even know where to start. I just…I don’t know.” 

His throat works in place for a moment, and he shakes his head minutely as if to toss the words out slapdash before they leave him for good. “Guess I should just say me and that guy Kamski you were talking about don’t have the best working relationship. Struck an old sore spot.” 

Connor tries and fails to suppress a wry smile despite the sudden heat rush making his sweater feel far too warm. “That’s a polite way of saying he’s an uppity asshole sometimes, you know.” 

“Yeah,” Hank laughs incredulously, brows climbing his forehead. “I mean…yeah.” 

“How do you know Elijah?” Connor asks, even if it hurts to physically say the words aloud.

Surprisingly, Hank seems forthright with cutting right to the chase even if he stumbles some around his words. “I, uh, had a little stint in the psych ward upstairs, few years back,” he says, legs shifting some under the thin blanket. “Went back to work too soon after….after. Something bad. And it put me in a rough spot—unprepared and ill-equipped to do my job.” 

Connor stays quiet as he listens, and Hank blows out a heavy breath. “Anyway, me and the good Dr. Kamski got to know each other. Maybe I tried to jump over a table and knock his teeth down his throat one day. Progressive therapy, y’know.” 

“Oh my God,” Connor blurts out. “That was you?!” 

Hank tips his head to one side and scratches through his beard. “You didn’t know? That’s interesting. Huh.” He seems to ponder that for a moment, and then rolls the shoulder opposite of his tubed side. “I guess they’re serious about patient confidentiality up there. Or, more like Fowler threw some weight around and talked to the right people to make it go away.” 

Connor’s mind is swimming with so many thoughts he feels like he’s dunked his head into a fishbowl. He can already feel the big question forming on the tip of his tongue, though, and resolves to try and keep his cool. “What happened that you even wound up under Elijah’s care?” 

Hank doesn’t answer right away this time. His eyes rove elsewhere around the room, looking at things like he’s seeing them for the very first time. His sights settle on the now drooping flowers Connor picked out several days before as he says, quietly, “My son died. Car accident.” 

Silence falls between them while Hank picks at his blanket and Connor tries to find the right words. 

“I’m so sorry, Hank,” he says, and then can’t make himself say any more.

Hank looks horrified in a way, like he hates himself for speaking the truth in spite of doing it anyway. “I wanted to let go, you know,” he rasps out, voice gone faintly brittle. “I was caught up in that shootout and once I knew I’d been critically hit…I wanted that to be it. Lights out. Easy.” 

“There’s worse ways to die than bleeding out on a steel table, some washed up old police lieutenant,” he adds before Connor can speak. “At least I would’ve been able to say I lived my fucking life. That I…I didn’t get snuffed out before I even got started.” There are tears streaking down his face by the time he says, bitterly, “Cole didn’t get that much.”

It’s a wordless thing when Connor reaches out and touches the back of his hand before wrapping his fingers around to tuck against Hank’s palm. “He wouldn’t have wanted you to give up,” he says. “He would’ve wanted you to keep going, to be happy, Hank. I’m sure he loved you with his whole heart.” 

Hank draws in a shuddering, painful breath but the tears haven’t stopped. “He’s gone, so I’ll never get to know what he wants,” he says, pausing while his throat constricts. “There’s really nothing left for me. I know somebody would’ve taken good care of Sumo, Ben or maybe even Chris.” 

Connor feels his own eyes burning now, too—a heady mixture of sadness and anger rolling through him like a building storm. “Don’t talk like that,” he says evenly, squeezing Hank’s hand for emphasis. “I’m glad you’re here. Every single day since I took you into my care, Hank.” 

His voice is shaking at the edges when he says, “I know I can’t bring back your son, but I can be…a friend, to you. God, I can be whatever you want.”

Hank mops around his face with his free hand, already shaking his head. “Connor—” 

“I’m not your nurse right now,” Connor says, cutting in over him. “Don’t think of me like one.” 

When Hank’s mostly composed himself again, he gently draws his hand away and rubs into both eyes before blearily looking back over at Connor. “Don’t you think it’s strange, that we hardly know each other outside this room?” he asks. “Our paths never would’ve crossed otherwise.”

Connor pulls his glasses off, and with them gone Hank can more clearly see the faint half-moons like bruises under his eyes. “Sometimes good things happen in this world,” he says, leveling Hank with a look. “I think meeting you was one of them.” 

All Hank can think about is that Connor’s seen him naked and had to empty his piss out of a bag, but he’s never seen him stand or walk or get out of bed. He’s washed Hank’s hair but never sat and watched a shitty movie with him. It all feels unbalanced, untapped, uneven on one side.

But at the exact same time, his heart seems to know how to speak for him. Connor’s seen all this and still hasn’t gone away.

“We gotta…take things slow,” Hank says. “Figure things out, okay? I’m not in top form over here—I’m still pissing through a tube, for Christ’s sake. And then you’re young, and _you_. Looking like you do, being a fucking angel. Jesus, it kills me.” 

Connor’s grin is rivaling the sun when he winks and says, “Oh, I’m no angel.” 

“You are,” Hank croaks, shaking his head. “And to think I didn’t used to believe in them.”

This time Connor’s smile is softer, more thoughtful. “I’m 32 years old, Hank. I’ve been around the block a few times.” He perches his glasses back on his nose and suddenly seems pulled back together, handsome and picturesque. “What you can believe in is me being here no matter what. So long as you let me stick around.” 

It’s creeping up on Connor’s usual bedtime for work nights, and he stifles a yawn behind his hand before climbing to his feet again. But instead of stepping away, he steps closer and leans down to grip Hank’s shoulder in a makeshift hug. “Thank you for talking with me about all that,” he says. 

Hank reaches up to press a hand between his shoulder blades, and it’s cumbersome with his IV tube still in the way but he does it anyway and finds he doesn’t really want to let go. He turns his face just enough that his chin is resting there against Connor’s shoulder, where his wool sweater is warm and smells clean and wonderful. Hank closes his eyes, runs his hand down Connor’s back, and then lets out an unsteady kind of breath.

“No, thank you,” he says when Connor gently pulls away. It’s hard to exist inside these fragile, human moments—things he didn’t allow himself for such a long time. “Are you working tomorrow?”

Connor nods, weary but smiling all the same. “Then three days off in a row for me,” he says. “I’ll have to be crafty about sneaking up here. Maybe get a few different disguises, keep you on your toes.” 

“Huh,” Hank says, chuckling despite himself, and everything. He doesn't quite know what to say, so he says the first truth that comes to mind. “I’ll be looking forward to that.”  
  
  


\+ + + + +  
  
  


Connor sleeps hard and long that night. He doesn’t quite remember what he did before climbing into bed, but he knows he managed to strip down to his underwear before brushing his teeth and setting his glasses on the side table. Trio curls up in the crook of his arm and purrs like a boat motor. 

Things with Hank still seem—fragile, in a way. Absolutely tentative and new, like the tiny buds on a blooming rosebush. Part of Connor wanted to call Richard and scream into the phone on the drive home, but it still feels too early for any of that. He just needs to sit back on his heels and let things unfold in good time.

When his alarm goes off the next morning, he gets up and gets ready for another day at work. The promise of three days off is appealing in more ways than one, not least of all because Connor’s been living at the hospital nearly every waking moment this week except when he’s been home asleep. The good news is, the faster Hank goes into the transitional care unit, the closer he is to going home himself. 

Connor clocks in on time like he always does and walks out onto the floor to check the patient board and relieve the night nurse. Mostly to see if they took on anybody new overnight, though his heart leaps into his throat when he sees Simon’s name there next to _Henry Anderson: Room 298._

“Did Simon take night shift yesterday?” Connor asks aloud where he’s standing in the nurse’s station, turning to look at Lucy and Chloe. “Why haven’t we switched over the board yet for today.” 

“It’s already been switched over, Connor,” Markus says, stepping out of the back room with his charge nurse uniform on. He tucks a clipboard under one arm and motions for Connor to walk with him. “A word in my office, if you don’t mind. It’ll take just a moment.” 

Connor’s stomach drops so swiftly that he suddenly feels ill, but he grits his teeth against the surge of nausea and nods. “No problem,” he says. “Good morning, Markus.” 

They don’t even make it fully down the hall to Markus’s office before he slows to a stop and fixes Connor with his blue-and-green stare, eyes open and clear. “Mr. Anderson’s fired you as his nurse, effective immediately,” he says. “I don’t quite know what’s been going on between you two—but I have my suspicions, Connor. And I don’t want to be the one to sign off on that paperwork if it comes across my desk from somebody in HR.” 

Connor suddenly feels like he can’t breathe. “I…don’t understand,” he says, face gone numb from shock. “I—we—he…he just saw me last night when I clocked out. There’s legitimately no reason—”

“He doesn’t need a reason,” Markus says firmly. “You know the patient’s wishes come first when they’re able to communicate them. So don’t worry yourself with it right now; Simon’s going to monitor him until he’s moved upstairs, and then he’s not the ICU’s responsibility anymore. You’ve provided excellent care from what I can tell, but now his care is out of your hands.” 

Connor stands there, glassy eyed, feeling like he could fall through the floor and die. “I understand,” he says hollowly. “Thank you for letting me know.” 

“It’s what I’m here for, Connor,” Markus says, briefly squeezing his shoulder before turning to make the rest of the trek down the hall to his office. “Don’t let it eat at you,” he adds, looking back over his shoulder. “Shit happens.” 

After Connor turns and stiffly walks back to the nurse’s station to update himself on last night’s charting, he tries to push the thought of being fired—by Hank—to the back of his mind so he can focus. But it hurts, badly, and in a way he can’t even begin to wrap his mind around. Feeling the slow rise of panic in his bones, he walks into the lounge and locks himself in the bathroom, staring at his own reflection in the mirror. Even when he takes his glasses off his stricken face and eyes fail to provide any answers. Nothing makes sense, and he’s still so shocked he can’t even muster up the energy to swear or cry.

It takes two and a half agonizing hours of charting and rotating between his other patients before Connor finds a spare moment to slip down the hall to 298. He doesn’t even know what he’s going to say when he sees Hank, is the frightening thing. After all they’ve been through in the short amount of time they’ve known each other, there’s no preparing for what comes next.

When Connor pushes inside and slides the door mostly shut behind him, he finds Hank sitting up in bed with one of the forgotten crossword puzzle books Connor had left with him days before. He’s squinting at the fine print, apparently having some difficulty without his glasses, but looks up and smiles sheepishly when he sees who it is. 

“There you are,” he says, amiable enough. “I was wondering how long it’d take you to come up here and give me an earful.” 

Connor holds his hands out at his sides, palms facing upward, standing there at a loss. “I don’t understand,” he croaks, and immediately feels his throat ache with some emotion—betrayal, anger, sadness? “What could I have possibly done that you’d want me gone?”

Hank just looks at him and slowly sets his crossword down in his lap. “Connor,” he says. “Come here.” 

“Answer me, Hank!” Connor hisses. “I have no fucking idea what’s going on between us right now. You’ve made me look like an incompetent nurse and a fool.”

“Come here,” Hank tries again, croaking it out this time. “Please. I have something to give you.” 

Tears are blurring in Connor’s eyes as he takes a single step forward and then stops. “I don’t want your money, or a fucking thank-you card,” he says. “I want to know why you’d do this without saying anything.” 

“I wanted to try and protect you,” Hank says quietly, tongue swiping along his bottom lip as he fidgets in place. “I—just come here, would you? That’s all I’m asking.” 

Connor marches over to his bedside with palpable reluctance, hands shaking as adrenaline runs through his limbs. “What?” he snaps. “If you need something, I’ll have to call Simon.” 

“Simon isn’t the man I want to see right now,” Hank says, reaching out to wrap his fingers around Connor’s trembling ones. “Sit down before you give us both a goddamn heart attack, alright? It’s nothing bad.” Hank pulls a pained face. “I’ve fucking ruined this, haven’t I? Shit.” 

Connor’s eyes narrow as he drops into the stool he’s sat on so many times at this bedside. He stares at Hank’s larger hand holding his like something precious, and then he looks up and meets Hank’s line of sight. “Ruined what?” he says, and then can’t seem to speak any further. 

Hank reaches out, touches just below his chin, tips his face up an inch. Connor lets him. God help him, he just lets him. His heart beats in his throat like a dying bird in its last fitful rally to fly away.

When Hank smiles it’s goofy and shy, like he can’t quite believe himself, either. “I had to fire you so I could do this first thing,” he says with the gap between his teeth shining, the bastard, and then leans in close to press his lips to Connor’s in a sweet brush of a warm, soft kiss.

It lingers long enough that their noses bump together, gentle and only slightly awkward. Connor tastes Listerine but his brain doesn’t register it in this moment. He just gasps, a soft sound there against Hank’s mouth, and closes his eyes to let this happen as he presses in for more, deeper.

Hank’s free hand comes up to curl around his face, holding Connor there, palm big enough to cup from his jaw to his ear. He holds him there even when they gently pull apart, lingering in each other’s space as Connor tries to catch his breath. His glasses are crooked on his face.

“Hey,” Hank says, a warm word right there where Connor can feel it. “You alright?” 

He nods, and then feels his face split into a slow smile that makes both dimples deepen in his cheeks. Hank fondly thumbs at one of them, passing the pad over Connor’s faint smile lines. 

“So much for taking it slow,” Connor says, snorting, and then leans in to kiss Hank again.  
  
  
+  
  
  


By lunchtime Hank has had his chest tube removed and taped shut with two tiny steri strips. He looks physically relieved to have it gone, awash with the peculiar weariness that comes with having had a long burden lifted. Connor winks at him from the nurse’s station as Simon wheels him down the hall toward the elevator, feeling a flutter of relief and sympathy around his heart; after a week in ICU, Hank’s finally on his way upstairs to transitional care. 

As for Connor himself, he practically floats through the rest of his shift. Even though Hank’s no longer nearby he doesn’t care, smiling stupidly as he goes between his other patients and does all matters of the routine mundane between changing bed pans and emptying Foley bags. It’s only around his coworkers that he tries to keep his face in check, adopting a more neutral and ambiguous expression. He’s supposed to be hurt about being fired, not walking around on cloud fuckin’ nine after stealing a kiss at bedside.

Within three minutes of clocking out for the night, he’s already upstairs and breezing down the hall to the room number Hank texted him earlier. Captain Fowler’s already swung by with a few of the people Hank works with, and the evidence of their visit is scattered around the room: a Mexican takeout bag full of cold tacos, a two-liter of pineapple soda, and a blowup doll wearing a cheaply made “I Survived Target Practice And All I Got Were Three Holes” t-shirt.

“Three holes, huh?” Connor says when he walks in, quirking an eyebrow at the doll. 

Hank grins sheepishly and flushes from his cheeks to his chest. He’s dressed in something other than a hospital gown now, just boxer shorts and a button-up shirt with a hideous geometric pattern, still open to expose his tattoo and belly. Connor loves it the moment he sees it.

“Count ‘em,” Hank says, touching the two healing spots on his chest and then tapping the knee that took a hit. “I work with a bunch of fucking comedians, alright? I’m surprised it wasn’t worse.” 

Connor shakes his head and feels his lips tingle in anticipation as he saunters up to the bedside. “I had to come get another kiss before I go home for the night,” he says. “Just to make sure you’ve still got it now that we’re so many miles apart.” 

He bows over to meet Hank’s lips when he tips his face up, and it’s just another chaste peck, sweet and simple this time. “Mm, not half bad,” he says, wrinkling his nose as Hank pulls him back in again to nip along his bottom lip.

“You haven’t seen anything yet, slick,” Hank growls, and Connor makes a tiny sound in the back of his throat when a big hand rests there on the meat of his thigh, hot through the scrub material. “Just wait until I can get out of this bed and move around on my own horsepower again.” 

The mere thought seems so foreign and fantastical that Connor goes a little starry-eyed just imagining what Hank can do with all the weight and power in that body of his. 6’4’’ and 250-plus isn’t exactly something to turn your nose up at. He hates to draw information from his professional caretaking, but facts are facts: Hank’s a big man no matter where you look.

But for now, that notion is far-off and needs to stay that way. Hank is still healing, just now had a drainage tube pulled out of his lung today, and can’t hold weight on his knee for more than a few moments at a time. It’s going to take a few weeks of PT at best to get him back up to speed.

Hank squeezes Connor’s thigh again and leans back enough to get a good look at him. “You have dinner yet?” he asks. “Plenty of leftovers to go around if you can find somewhere to nuke it real quick.” He pulls the paper bag over and opens it up for Connor to peek inside. 

Cold Mexican food doesn’t sound like the greatest thing he’s ever eaten, but it’s free and it’s here, so he takes out two chicken tacos and steals away down to the visitor’s annex room. There are only two school-age kids inside, watching a movie on the television while they pass a box of goldfish crackers back and forth. They look up at Connor with fleeting curiosity, then go right back to watching their film. Their parents must be somewhere down the hall.

When Connor returns with two scalding-hot chicken tacos, Hank has turned his own TV on. He flips channels while Connor pours himself a paper cup full of Pineapple Passion, sipping idly at the room temperature soda. He smiles against the edge of his cup when Hank stops surfing to land on Scooby Doo.

They both watch in silence for a few moments while Connor eats. It’s nostalgic for both of them, which is odd to think about considering a twenty-year age difference. Hank was already out of college and working on his career when Connor came kicking and screaming into the world.

And yeah, there’s a lot to talk about—and a whole lot more to learn about each other. They’ve only really just scratched the surface, but Connor’s still been thinking about that damn kiss all day. Despite the whiskers, Hank’s mouth is softer than it looks—bottom lip just plump enough to suck on. If he can just keep kissing Hank, he thinks he’s bound to learn just about anything.

Hank must be traveling somewhere along the same train of thought, because his brow furrows and he clears his throat. “So,” he says. “You ever date anybody—uh. Older, before?” 

Connor crumples up his taco wrapper and lands a shot in the trash can from halfway across the room. “I almost always date older,” he says. “So don’t think you’re going to scare me off.” 

“I’m not trying to,” Hank says quickly. “It was just an honest question, s’all.” 

“Some men your age are predatory assholes who’ve never been held accountable for anybody’s emotional well-being in their whole life, and some men your age are looking for a quick rebound after their divorce papers are finalized,” Connor says, shrugging a little. “Been there, done that. As far as I’ve been able to tell, you aren’t either. You’re just—well.” He colors a bit, letting a curl of hair fall over his forehead as he tips his face forward to hide it. “You’re different, Hank.” 

Hank snorts good-naturedly. “I’ve got plenty of issues, sweetheart,” he says. “Don’t you worry about that.” 

“I think a lot of them, if not all of them, are circumstantial,” Connor says evenly. “They’re not things inherent to your character—things that would make you a bad man.”

Hank quiets some as he takes that in, nostrils flaring a bit as he draws in a deep breath. “Maybe that’s true,” he says, eyes flickering up to meet Connor’s. “But how do you know for sure?”

That’s a good question; maybe one Connor doesn’t have a complete answer to. How can he say it’s just something he felt, in his heart and his mind, the same day Hank first woke up in the ICU? Seems kinda crazy to admit as much out loud, but Hank is still waiting for a response. 

“Call it a hunch, I guess,” Connor says, smiling gently. “I like to think I have a sixth sense about this kind of thing.” 

Hank blows out a sigh and shakes his head. “Even about old washed-up police lieutenants like me, huh? Old enough to be your father.” 

Connor narrows his eyes and makes a disbelieving sound. “What, do you plan on reading me a bedtime story before you put me to bed every night?” he asks. “My father definitely wasn’t 21 when I was born.”

“Oh, I can put you to bed,” Hank says abruptly, voice dropping down into his chest. It happens so fast that Connor’s stomach plummets like he just went into freefall on a roller coaster. “That can be arranged.” 

The sense of vertigo is immediately replaced with a rush of searing heat. Connor flushes crimson but still leans in close all the same as he lightly touches two fingers to the back of Hank’s arm, lashes cast low. "I’ll be sure to hold you to it, Mr. Anderson,” he says, and then stands up to go.

Hank watches Connor gather his lunch tote and his coat with just the barest hint of mirth at the corners of his eyes, though it’s quickly replaced with something like longing. “I wish you could put me in your pocket and take me with you,” he huffs, gnawing along his bottom lip. It’s endearing and also a little bit like whiplash, hearing him say something so roguish and then something so sweet.

“I will one of these days,” Connor says gently, and when he reaches out to touch Hank’s hair, Hank takes his hand instead and presses a warm kiss to the back of it between his middle and ring fingers. The feeling of his lips at the delicate skin there makes Connor’s stomach jolt again.

“Keep your phone handy tonight,” he says, letting the words leave him before he’s even really thought it all through. He touches the ridge of Hank’s brow, and it’s tender enough to make a heady mixture of feeling swirl through him in a storm. “I—I might text you later. Before bed.” 

“Okay, handsome,” Hank rumbles, squeezing his hand one more time before letting Connor go. “Go home and get some rest,” he says, smiling. “I’m healing up as fast as I can.” 

“You are,” Connor says. “You’re doing so good, Hank.” He’s almost reluctant to leave, but he knows he needs to go home and decompress, get back into a neutral space and spend some time with Trio. It’ll be good to have a few days off work to clear his head and gather his senses. 

Even still, Connor’s heart flips when Hank says, “Lunch instead of dinner tomorrow?” 

“I think you’re the only person on this planet who could convince me to come back up here on my days off,” he says, not unkindly. Connor raps three knuckles on the doorway as he leaves and nods; now he can’t think of any other lunch date in the world he’d rather have. “I’ll be here.”  
  


+  
  


Back home again, Connor feels a little restless despite his best efforts otherwise. It’s steadily getting late but even after he feeds Trio and runs a load of laundry it’s hard to settle his mind; the lull of the TV droning in the background doesn’t help, and he can’t sit still long enough to read a book. It’s pushing ten o’clock at night when he finally thumbs the television off and walks through his townhouse, switching off lights as he goes. He winds up in his bathroom and turns on the shower, leaving only the overhead light there on as the room slowly begins to fill with steam. He’s long since stripped out of his dirty scrubs, though he shivers some as he steps out of his briefs and undershirt now.

Hank’s words are on his mind. How could they not be? The nature of their relationship has changed swiftly but not unexpectedly—though there’s the needling haunt of frustration hanging over everything like a gossamer shroud, where Connor can see and hear what he wants without fully touching it. It’s probably for the best that Hank’s still in the hospital, or Connor thinks he may have already brought him home before tonight. Is it infatuation? Or something more than that? He wishes he knew. There’s as much haunting wonder as there is thrill in the thought.

Regardless, Connor doesn’t waste much time with navel-gazing after he steps into the shower. He washes his hair and quickly soaps up his body, then stands under the hot spray as he pushes a slick palm over his lower belly until he can take himself in hand. It’s not enough of what he wants, not by a long shot, but he still comes within less than a dozen languid tugs on his cock, standing there with one arm braced against the shower wall while the water runs down his back.  
  
He wants to say Hank’s name, but he doesn’t. Not yet.

Loose-limbed and warm, Connor gets out and dries off but doesn’t pull on any boxers or pajama pants. He looks at his naked body in the bathroom mirror without his glasses but can’t make out much more than the general shape and paleness of his own skin. Narrow hips, flat belly with a fine dusting of hair low beneath his navel. He’s by no means big or broad, but there’s strength in the corded tendons of his arms, and a nice cut to his shoulders. 

Hank hasn’t seen any of this. 

It makes the hair on Connor’s arms and legs prickle, thinking of how he’s seen every inch of Hank—and yet Hank only knows the feeling of Connor’s mouth and hands. At the same time, Connor understands all his caregiving was done under the strict boundaries of a professional relationship: where real intimacy is involved, he’s only ever known Hank’s mouth and hands, himself. 

Connor thinks about this as he goes and slides into bed, twisting on the bedside lamp so he can see. He looks down at his own body, cups his soft cock in one hand, gently squeezes but doesn’t immediately feel a flare of arousal after his time in the shower. But the muscles in his belly pull taut and clench, and he reaches for his phone where it’s been charging beside the bed. 

He takes one photo, then two—then a few more on top of that. Mostly hides his groin from view, except for the barest hint of soft skin and dark curls there at the base of his cock. Deletes all of them but one, and wonders if this is even anything Hank would be interested in looking at. 

When Connor sends the photo to _Hank’s cell_ he feels so dizzy with nerves and a jittery spike of adrenaline that he has to close his eyes and draw in a few deep breaths. None of the photos show his face, of course—but still. Just the idea of Hank seeing them is more than enough.

It takes a few minutes, but Hank’s answering text comes back shortly. 

_Beautiful_ , is all it says. Connor stares at that word until another text dings in underneath it a few moments later. _can’t wait to kiss all those freckles_

Connor squints, then slips on his glasses from the bedside table and looks down in earnest at the dark moles on his belly—one there beside his navel, another cluster near his hip bone. He smiles because the response is almost silly, compared to what he might’ve expected from any other man, but then he thinks about Hank’s mouth there and his breathing deepens. 

_Wish you were here_ , Connor texts back. He means it in more ways than he knows to count.

The typing notification sits there on Connor’s screen for nearly a whole minute; it’s enough to make him start to feel overheated and uncomfortable. But then Hank’s incoming message is finally there, just five short words that spell out a promise Connor thinks they both can believe in.

_I will be soon enough.  
  
_

\+ + + + +  
  
  


Connor brings baked pasta and salad to the hospital the following day, looking as prim and handsome as a schoolmaster in his neat navy sweater and visitor’s pass. He feels a bit bashful in the bold face of what he’d texted Hank the night before, but Hank only grins and gives him a knowing wink when he walks in. Interestingly, he doesn’t say another word about it.

In exchange for a homemade meal and a kiss (or two, or three), Hank hands over his house keys that had come in to the ER with him on a stretcher the week before. Connor remembers taking them out of the personal possessions bag and washing blood off them before putting them in the patient locker.

“Know I’m gonna regret this,” Hank sighs, raking a hand through his hair. “But I—uh. Figured you could get a look around while you’re there, be easier without me hovering.” He laughs and it sounds forced. “Don’t look too hard at the mess, alright? I’m a bachelor for a reason.”

What Connor finds, despite Hank’s embarrassment, is a charming single-bedroom home on the canal that’s plenty spacious for a man and his dog. There’s a coffee cup and some silverware stacked on one side of the sink and an overturned bottle of Black Lamb on the other. A full bag of kibble for big breeds and the dog dishes still missing—over at Ben’s house, Connor remembers. He looks at the coffee cup and wonders about Hank setting it there the morning he left before work, not knowing he’d wind up in the ICU that very evening. 

And yeah, it’s not pristine by any means. A fine layer of dust has gathered on the surface of shelves and bookcases. There are silver whiskers stuck to a glob of toothpaste in the sink, and not all Hank’s dirty laundry made it into the hamper in the bathroom. But there are touches of life here and there—a few framed photos, what looks like a handmade blanket on the chair in the bedroom, and potted plants in the office and a cactus in one windowsill, which thankfully haven’t missed watering too much in Hank’s absence.

In the bedroom, Connor goes to the closet and picks out a few shirts that catch his eye, which is no simple task considering they _all_ do in their own unique way. Hank definitely isn’t a man afraid of color and pattern. He gathers up some shorts and underwear like Hank had asked and adds them into the bag, then curiously sinks down on the edge of the mattress. He stares long and hard at the bedside table for a few moments before pulling out the single drawer. 

Surprisingly, there aren’t any condoms—but there is lube, tissues, empty cough drop wrappers, a spare charging cord, a gym membership four years out of date, and a very sleek bullet vibrator, just long enough and tapered at the end for…well. Connor stares at the toy, feeling his face and chest heat up as his mind wanders. He doesn’t touch it, but he gently closes the drawer and tugs at the neck of his sweater. 

Not for the first time in the past few days, it occurs to him that he and Hank have a whole lot left to learn about each other.

Back at the hospital, Josh comes by again to begin some preliminary effort for Hank’s physical therapy. They work on bending the joint and stretching the stiff tendons in his leg, and the pain makes Hank sweat until the front of his t-shirt is damp and his face shines under the light. 

“Think I’ve had enough of this torture for one day,” he eventually gasps, slumping back against the chair he’s in while Josh gently eases his leg back down. They put the knee immobilizer splint back on, and it takes Connor and Josh both to get him up into bed again. The nurse in the transitional unit has slowly been weaning Hank off the heaviest of his pain medication, but it comes with a new price. 

When Josh is gone, Hank passes a hand over his eyes and then sits there looking terribly pale, still breathing a little heavily. Connor fans him slowly with a folded magazine, trying to cool Hank down without touching him.

“I know it’s going to be rough,” Connor says, worrying the corner of his lip while he searches for the right words. “But it’s the only way to get back on your feet again. Josh is great at what he does, and he knows when to push and when to pull back.” 

“I’m not worried about Josh,” Hank sighs. “I’ve got all the faith in the world in the guy. I’m worried about me being 54 years old and learning how to fucking walk again with a bum knee that was already two loose bolts away from being off the block to begin with. This is degrading, Connor. Fucking ridiculous.” 

Connor smiles as Hank huffs in frustration. He’s clearly pouting, and rightfully so to some extent, but Connor doesn’t mention that. He sets the magazine in his lap and sizes Hank up from behind his glasses. “Whether it’s degrading or not, you still have to do it,” he says. And then more quietly, with a glint of something in his eye: “Do you want me to baby you or not?” 

Hank coughs out a laugh as his eyes swerve over. “Baby me?” he asks. “What kind of question—”

“I said what I said, Mr. 54-year-old-hardened-Police-Lieutenant,” Connor quips. “Now, are you going to do what Josh tells you in PT every week so you can get better?” 

“What?” Hank splutters. “Of course I’m—what are you even getting at, here?”

“So that’s a yes?” Connor asks, quirking an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Hank sighs, slapping a hand against his thigh. “Are you happy now?” 

“Yes to which question?” Connor asks. “One or both.” 

Hank purses his mouth up for a moment, chin tipped toward his chest. One blue eye peers at Connor from under his brow and then he mumbles, “Both…I guess.” 

“Alright, then,” Connor says, decided, standing up to kiss Hank’s temple before starting to fuss with his hair. “Let’s pull this back so I can see that handsome face of yours.” 

All in all, despite the grumbling and the griping, it wouldn’t take a detective to see the pleased flush on Hank’s face or the content little tilt to his mouth as Connor brushes his hair back and ties it into a neat ponytail at the nape of his neck. 

He never once complains about PT again.  
  


+  
  


On the tenth morning he wakes up in the hospital, Hank opens his eyes just as dawn is beginning to peek in through his blinds, blue and misty like the air above a cold coastline. He can hear tiny birds outside as they flit around and greet the lackluster sunrise, unbothered by the overcast sky. Before the day shift nurse even comes in to tell him, he knows with a bone-deep certainty he’s being discharged today. 

It’s incredible to think his middle-aged, broken down body has gone through so much and begun the slow but inevitable crawl of recovery in less than two weeks. The past few days have almost been _easy_ , if it weren’t for Josh and his stretching exercises specifically devised to make Hank feel the kind of pain that makes a man want to puke up his lungs. 

Here’s the thing, though: he knows he’s been taken good care of. Such incredibly good care, in fact, that Hank has almost forgotten how quiet, empty, and lonely his own place is with just him and Sumo and the low drone of the television. If he thought being waited on hand and foot in the hospital without many visitors was bad, he’s got another fucking thing coming once he’s back home again.

Hank feels tiny tendrils of panic crawling up his neck at the thought of sitting in that dark, empty house with his healing body that can’t do much for itself. Certainly can’t run, or walk more than a few hobbling steps at a time. Can’t shower. Can’t stand at the stove to fry a goddamn egg.

The reality of how alone he really is slams into him like a freighter.

“I can’t fucking do this,” Hank whispers to himself, reaching up to press the heels of both hands into his eyes until he sees starbursts. His lungs suddenly feel tight, too narrow. “Oh fuck. _Fuck._ ” 

“Can’t do what?” a voice asks from the doorway, and Hank jumps in surprise. Visitor hours don’t start for another hour and a half but Connor is standing there with coffee and a paper bag from the bagel shop down the street. He cocks his head to one side, waiting for Hank to answer.

“Nothing,” he grunts, clearing his throat. “It’s...nothing. Just me being a drama queen.” 

Connor drags a chair back over to Hank’s bedside and sits down with a sigh, already passing a hot coffee over. “Black, two sugars,” he says, and then sits back to survey Hank from over the tops of his glasses. “Did I walk in on you feeling sorry for yourself, Mr. Anderson? On this day of forthcoming freedom.”

Hank snorts softly against the rim of his coffee, trying to act casual. “Not me, chief,” he murmurs, even as his heart jumps and sinks at the thought of being able to go home. “You got some intel you aren’t sharing with the class?” 

Connor fishes around in his paper bag and produces a toasted everything-bagel with cream cheese, taking one half for himself before passing the other to Hank in a wax paper sleeve. “Word on the street is you’re a free man once the doctor clears you for launch after he gets out of morning surgery,” Connor says, eyes sparkling. “I’m here to take you home.” 

Hank thinks about being delivered into Connor’s hands when he was laying on death’s doorstep—entirely unconscious of everything this man before him had done those first few days to keep him comfortble and alive. Somehow those same hands are here now, unbidden, offering to bring him back out into the light of day. This is a full circle Hank never would’ve anticipated to take in a million years. 

He’d expected to close his eyes and never wake up again. Welcomed it, even. 

And yet, here he is. Eating the best goddamn bagel in Detroit with the most handsome face he’s ever had the pleasure of keeping company with...and kissing.

“You’re my designated driver, huh?” he says, stupidly, because at this moment he doesn’t know what else to say. It’s all wound up in a knot inside his chest, and the harder he picks at it the more tangled it seems to feel. He could tell Connor Stern a million things, and all of them would begin with the words _thank you._

“Well…” Connor starts, cheeks coloring slightly. He looks down at his lap and chews along his bottom lip before letting his eyes flick back up to meet Hank’s. “I don’t just have to drop you off and run, do I? I thought I’d, uhm...y’know. Stay over for a few days. Help you get on your feet.” 

Hank’s poor old heart is thumping a mile a minute. “Honey,” he says, just a little shakily. “I don’t think I’m going to be up on these feet anytime soon.” 

Connor’s mouth twitches. “Is that an invitation for me to stay longer?” 

“For as long as it takes for you to get fuckin’ sick of me,” Hank says, hating himself as he does. He can’t help it. “So I’ll give you about a week, give or take a few days.”

But Connor isn’t backing down, nor is he a coward. He smiles and thoughtfully chews around a mouthful of bagel, bringing his thumb up to his mouth to lick a smear of cream cheese off. Hank watches, distracted, and tries not to wonder how he deserved all this. 

“My bag’s already in the car and I’ve drafted my brother to cat sit,” Connor says, smirking. “Didn’t I tell you once before I’m not that easy to get rid of?” 

True to Connor’s word, Hank’s surgeon shows up a quarter til twelve in his OR scrubs and goes through a few diagnostic sheets and simple mobility tests before he shakes Hank’s hand. Somehow, it’s a streamlined process from there, and before Hank knows it his room is packed up, he’s got a plastic tote full of his belongings and a still-inflated blowup doll in his lap, and Connor’s strapped his leg into the mobilizer and helped him settle down into a squeaky wheelchair. 

“We’ll drop your scripts off on the way,” Connor says just before they roll out the sliding doors into the plain afternoon. The sounds and smells hit Hank all at once, and he clenches his jaw to keep the sudden wash of emotion off his face. God damn, if he hasn’t missed this city. 

“Any final parting words?” Connor asks, squeezing Hank’s shoulder once they make it to the car. They’re facing the hospital and Hank looks up at it for a moment before slowly raising the arm of his blowup doll and waving it solemnly back and forth in farewell.

“Thanks for giving me the hottest nurse in all of Detroit,” he says, and that makes Connor bark out one of his bright, rasping laughs that make his whole face crinkle with mirth.

“Damn straight,” Connor says, bending over to press a kiss to his cheek. 

Hank’s got to admit, he’s feeling better already.  
  


+  
  


The house feels too still without Sumo. Hank’s loaned crutches won’t go over the stoop, so Connor had wrapped a strong arm around him and slowly helped him up the step until Hank could balance there with his weight on his good leg, already sweating buckets despite the cool air.

Connor had gotten him settled on the couch and then gone back out to the car to get their bags and the crutches. He must’ve taken a call, because Hank can hear his voice faintly from somewhere at the top of the driveway, low and casual. The TV remote is at the far end of the coffee table and Hank looks around for something to knock it closer to him but there’s nothing in reach.

He lets out a long-suffering sigh, eyes roving around his own living room. Everything smells strange and foreign after so many days in the hospital; he takes in the dust and the clutter and the water stain in the corner by the deck door and feels like he’s seeing it all for the first time.

The healing, pink skin on Hank’s chest feels tight and itchy. He’s got an ointment to put on the scars to help with the discomfort but it’s still in the bag Connor hasn’t brought in from the car. He opens the top three buttons on his shirt and reaches inside, pressing his fingertips to the tender place where a slug tore through his body. It’s warm to the touch, but not enough to be feverish. Just another one for the larger collection.

When Connor comes in and shuts the door, he sets their stuff down in the foyer and goes to get a glass of water. He brings it back with two of the horse pill-sized ibuprofen tablets he’d pocketed from Hank’s morning medication and passes the water over before dropping the pills into Hank’s hand. 

“Are you hungry?” he asks. “I don’t know what’s here, but I can pick up some things when I go get your meds later. Easy stuff to make while I’m at work so you don’t have to worry with it.” 

Hank necks his pills dry much to Connor’s dismay, leaning to the side to set the water down on a nearby coaster. “Can we….not worry about me, for a few minutes?” he asks, wincing as he says it. “I feel like enough of a chump with you waiting on me hand and foot. Christ, especially now.” 

Connor’s mouth tightens up into a bow for a second before flattening back out again. “Are we seriously going to have this conversation again?” he asks, hitching his hands up on his hips. “ _Hank._ ” 

“Can we just be two normal fucking guys for a few?” Hank asks. His voice comes out tiredly, but there’s a ghost of something desperate there. “Pretend I don’t need anybody to hold my hand while I take a shit for half an hour, that’s all I’m asking here.” 

For a moment Connor looks like he wants to argue, but he presses his mouth into a grim line and breathes deeply through his nose. “What do two ‘normal fucking guys’ typically do?” he asks. “Enlighten me. Because as far as I can tell, our options seem pretty limited for the time being.” 

Hank taps a closed fist against his mouth, vaguely aggravated. He stares at Connor’s middle where a piece of lint has stuck itself to his hoodie pocket and resists the urge to reach out and pluck at it. It almost physically hurts to ask his next question, but he does it anyway. 

“Can you help me to the bedroom?” he sighs. “Feel like I need to lay down for a minute.” 

Connor seems surprised by that, at least enough to get him rooted back into RN mode now that he needs to move his patient. Hank doesn’t want that and everything that comes with it, but he does want to lay in his own damn bed, and he does want Connor as close as physically possible. 

They hobble together down the hall, pressed side to side. Hank’s got a few good inches of height on Connor but he surmises their upper body strength may be a lot closer than anybody would imagine just looking at them. Years and years of turning and lifting patients in the ICU has made Connor more than capable of maneuvering Hank around without even breaking a sweat. More than that, Hank can feel the muscles in his sides tighten and contract as he bears a good amount of Hank’s bulk when they turn the corner to get him situated in bed.

When the floor fan is on low and Hank’s laying back with a pillow behind his head and another behind his knee, Connor leans over to pull the laces on his shoes and slip them off, tidily tucking them there by the nightstand. “Do you need anything else?” he asks quietly, briefly touching Hank’s forehead to feel for signs of fever. “Too warm? Too cool?” 

Hank looks up at him and it’s like staring into the fucking sun. Connor sees him watching and smiles a little lopsided, reaching up to adjust his glasses. He’s blushing, but Hank doesn’t know why.

“Yeah, I need something, Nurse Connor,” Hank croaks before he can psych himself out. “Need you to take your shoes off and come over here and take a load off.” 

Connor doesn’t move and Hank closes his eyes tightly, trying to keep his breathing measured out. “Please,” he adds, softer this time. “I just wanna...hold you, for a little bit. Jesus, I’ve been wanting to for days.” 

Hank keeps his eyes closed, wondering if he’s made a fool of himself. Wondering if, maybe, everything that happened between them while they were in the hospital was some strange, fucked-up fever dream. Maybe he imagined it all. Maybe Connor will leave and Hank will—

The bed dips on one side as Connor sits to take his shoes off. He slips his glasses off his face, too, and then leans across Hank on one elbow to settle them on top of the nightstand. He looks even sweeter without the dark frames, handsome features softened some in the afternoon light. 

Hank holds an arm open and Connor tucks himself in close, taking a moment to adjust their legs and get comfortable on top of the covers. When his head is pillowed there in the crook between Hank’s arm and shoulder he lets out a content sigh, and suddenly the room feels settled. Right.

“Is that all you needed, Mr. Anderson?” Connor murmurs, wrinkling his nose up in a smile as Hank turns his face to kiss those dark curls. He holds Connor a little tighter, feeling blissfully satisfied with what he’s got for the moment. It’s a whole hell of a lot more than he ever thought he’d have, again. 

Hank realizes he’s exhausted but nods anyway, making a content sound low in his chest. He thinks hard about how Connor feels in his arms, just like this. How he may feel, later, when there aren’t any clothes and bulky sweatshirts between them. He looks forward to that and more. 

“Think I’m all set,” Hank says. This alone is more than enough.

  
  


It’s late afternoon verging on the edge of dusk when Connor opens his eyes a few hours later. He’s disoriented at first, mouth dry and vision blurry—surprised to feel a warm body along his side and an amused huff against the top of his head. He remembers where he is, then, and smiles.

“You got one hell of a nap in,” Hank says, palming Connor’s hip through his jeans. “Thought we’d be here all night.” 

Connor doesn’t want to move just yet, so he doesn’t. He stares at the fabric on Hank’s shirt, notices where it’s started pilling up after too many years of going through the wash. He’s close enough to smell Hank’s deodorant and a whiff of something muskier and natural, but not unpleasant. Hank hasn’t seen a shower since the day before yesterday, having opted for giving himself rigorous pan baths in the meantime, so maybe that’s something they’ll figure out tonight now that he’s home again. Along with the crutches, Connor has a loaner shower chair folded up in the trunk of his car. Having nurses for friends is the perk that keeps on giving. 

“You hungry yet?” Connor asks, feeling his eyes water up as he tries to stave off a yawn. His jaw cracks anyway, and then Hank shifts just enough to get his glasses off the bedside table and pass them over. 

“Fuckin’ starving, if I’m being honest,” Hank says. And then more meekly, “I kinda gotta take a leak, uh. Soon. Once you get up.” 

“Oh shit,” Connor says, uncharacteristically swearing as he scrambles to get up. “Sorry, I wasn’t even thinking. Just sleeping the whole day away like we’ve got nothing better to do.” 

Hank smiles at that, shrugging a bit as he braces himself on his arms to slowly try and sit up. “Well, we don’t really,” he says, watching Connor march around the side of the bed with a crutch he left propped in the hall. “I’m not really complaining, other than needing to take a piss.” 

Connor stands and uses his body as a counterweight as Hank pulls himself up to stand, balancing there a little precariously as he gains his footing and gets the crutches wedged under his armpits. He limps away to the bathroom, not as careful on the tile as Connor would like, and fumbles one-handed with trying to get his dick out of his shorts. 

“Just sit down if it’s easier,” Connor says outside the open door, sighing as he listens to Hank swear under his breath. “Do you need me to help you?” 

“No, I—Jesus, I fucking got it,” Hank says. “The situation’s under control.” Not long after that, the sound of a heavy stream hitting porcelain echoes through the bathroom, and Connor feels himself deflate in relief. They’ll get through this healing period one step at a time, somehow.

He reaches up to rub his eyes behind his glasses, making the frames slip down his nose in the process. “Do you want to go ahead and wash up while you’re in there or eat something first?” Hank is quiet for a time, and then after the toilet flushes he grunts and says, “Guess I should, since my pants are already on the floor.” 

The hospital sent Hank home with a plastic cast liner, though it wouldn't be much use to them. He can take the immobilizer off to bathe, and the bullet wound in his knee is mostly healed through. It’s the torn stuff on the inside that keeps him hobbling around, sore and unable to keep much weight on the bad leg. 

Connor walks in and stands there, looking between the ass of Hank’s boxers and then between the tub and the showerhead. “I think it’d be easier for you to do this independently if you took a bath,” Connor says. “Just a suggestion, unless you want me to set up the shower chair.” 

Hank gnaws his lip and reaches up to palm the back of his neck. “This looks like a lose-lose to me, kid,” he says, leaning over to drop the lid on the toilet so he can sit down on the seat. “Not sure I could embarrass myself anymore than I already have, so whatever you think, I guess.” 

Moving 250 pounds of Henry Lee Anderson around isn’t easy, by any means, but Connor knows he’s strong enough to do it. He walks over to plug up the tub and turn on the warm water, then kneels there in front of the commode to begin helping Hank unbuckle his immobilizer brace. 

He steps back and lets Hank strip out of his clothes, trying to act interested in the grout around the sink and the preferred brand of toothpaste Hank uses. It’s hard sometimes, battling with the inherent dignity of a grown man in situations like this, but Hank lets Connor help him into the tub. He strategically drops a washcloth somewhere over his crotch and Connor looks away again, swallowing thickly. 

“I’ll give you some privacy while I figure out something for dinner,” he says as the bath continues to fill, lingering in the doorway. “Call me if you need anything, okay?” 

“M’fine,” Hank grunts, already sloshing the water around with a bar of soap in hand as he suds up his chest and shoulders. He stares ahead at the tiled wall. “Thanks, Con.” 

In the kitchen, Connor digs through the pantry and the refrigerator and doesn’t come up with much. Somebody had been kind enough to take Hank’s trash out for him in his absence—probably Ben when he came to collect Sumo—, but there are still a surplus of takeout menus stuck to the side of the fridge and two greasy pizza boxes balanced precariously on top of the toaster oven. Connor takes them out to the garbage bin and then returns to wash his hands, staring off through the rear window into the coming twilight at nothing in particular. 

He rests there at the edge of the sink, hands dripping. Not for the first time, Connor thinks about how strange and sudden all of this was. How Hank Anderson came into his life on a rolling bed, sedated and intubated, by all means hanging on to the edge of life itself. Two weeks later he’s standing in that man’s kitchen with the warm smell of him beginning to linger on his clothes.

Why had it felt so natural, and almost easy—Hank’s injuries and limitations included? Maybe he’s truly grandfathered into his career as a nurse, but that doesn’t explain...everything else. Connor rummages around for a dish towel and pats his hands dry before letting out a long sigh. He’s not quite sure where all this is headed, with Hank, but he’s grateful for it. A man put right into his hands for safekeeping, and that’s where Connor wants to hold him for as long as he possibly can. 

Dinner turns out to be a paltry spread of canned soup and some saltine crackers, the open and stale sleeve of which Connor unceremoniously tossed into the bin alongside a half-eaten loaf of moldy bread and the sour container of milk in Hank’s fridge. No veggies, fruits, or meats beyond a cured packet of bacon slices, unopened. Connor figures he might as well toss those in a pan and turns on the burner before hunting around for a skillet.

Turns out, Hank only has _one_ frying pan and _one_ small pot. This is a sad state of affairs, but he’ll bite his own tongue off before he mentions it anytime soon. Connor’s no psych major, but he has enough common sense and empathy as a nurse to know Hank needs all the positivity he can get.

While the pan is still heating up, Connor walks down the hall to poke his head in the bathroom. He looks at himself in the vanity mirror instead of at Hank, reaching up to fix that curl with a mind of its own that flops over his forehead. “Do you still need some more time?” he asks.

It’s quiet for a long moment. Hank has turned the water off, but it sloshes some around his body as he moves. “Uh,” he says, clearly not wanting to ask but mumbling it out anyway. “Shampoo isn’t as easy to rinse out as I thought.” 

That’s how Connor ends up back in the bathroom with a plastic beer glass he found in one of the kitchen cabinets, cuffing his sleeves before he turns the faucet to a trickle to fill the cup. He touches his thumb and ring finger to Hank’s hairline and gently pushes back, coaxing him to tip his head and subsequently bare the strong line of his throat. 

“Don’t want any soap getting in your eyes,” he murmurs, carefully pouring the water to rinse Hank’s hair. He scritches around his scalp and works his fingers through to the roots, easy and affectionate. Hank stays silent, still with the strategic washcloth in his lap—though when Connor glances down, he sees the cloth in question has become a bit more tented than it was before. 

“Con,” Hank rasps. “I think that’s—I think we’re good. You don’t have to keep...shit, I’m sorry.” He reaches up to paw at his face with one hand and presses his erection between his legs with the other. “Just give me a second, okay?” 

“Okay,” Connor says, though it comes out like a whisper when he does. He doesn’t quite know what to do, so he turns to walk out with the cup in hand and then freezes in the doorway with his back to Hank, shoulders as stiff as a board. 

“It’s okay to feel...good things,” he says, speaking the words into the cool bedroom while the balmy heat of the bathroom hangs in a humid fog behind him. Connor’s sweater is suddenly stifling. “The same thing happens to me sometimes. I could...help you. If you want.” 

It’s dead silent in the bathroom. Not even the water moves. Connor thinks for a split moment he’s made some grave mistake, and it turns out all the flirting and the banter and teasing in the hospital was a game. Finally, Hank lets out a shaky breath.

“Yes,” he says. And then, “God, Con, c’mere. Please. Holy shit, **_yes_ **.”

Connor doesn’t have to be asked twice. 

He gets down on his knees there at the side of the tub, feeling entirely overdressed next to Hank’s stark nakedness. It’s strange, and then it’s not. He and Hank share a look and then he laughs as he pulls his sweater over his head, leaving him in the thin cotton t-shirt underneath.

“Better,” Hank rumbles, and then reaches up with a wet hand to grip the back of Connor’s neck, pulling him over the side of the tub for a kiss. That strong palm squeezes and Connor moans into his mouth like a virgin on prom night, feeling a twitch of heat deep in his belly. 

“Let me, let me,” he says against Hank’s mouth, the words hot and searing as a fired knife. Their teeth and noses bump together and Connor reaches with a shaking hand down into the bath, squeezing Hank’s hard length through the wet washcloth. He’s seen this penis a hundred times in the past two weeks, and yet every other time was nothing like this one: it’s not just Mr. Anderson and his professional care plan, now, it’s Hank, and that’s Hank cock, hard and huge and oh, God, Connor is going to die before he even gets a good grip around it.

There’s no time for lube or teasing. Connor bats the washcloth aside and gets an eyeful of about seven solid inches that feel as heavy as a billy club in his hand. He squeezes, gently, and Hank swears somewhere against the side of Connor’s face. Soft and tickling, a warm breath let loose.

“Haven’t looked forward to a handy this much since the summer I turned thirteen,” Hank says, laughing even with his cock in Connor’s hand, and Connor can’t help but smile and kiss him again. The angle of this entire encounter is awkward and cumbersome, but he’ll make it work.

He wishes, somewhere in the back of his mind, that the tub was big enough for the both of them. He wishes even more this was happening in the bedroom with nothing but skin between them, but all good things in due time. Connor gives Hank an experimental stroke, dragging the pad of his thumb over the silky, bathwater-warm skin until he can round off the tip. 

Hank makes a strange sound in his chest and reaches up to grip behind Connor’s neck again, holding him close over the side of the tub. “Keep going,” he croaks. “You’re doing just fine, baby.”

If Connor was worried about his aching knees on the tile, he didn’t need to be pressed for long. His own dick is straining in the front of his jeans and he’s so worked up he squirms in his pants, looking for friction. But his hand never once stops, giving a delightful little twist on the upstroke like he likes for himself, and when Hank curls over and smashes their faces back together Connor’s not expecting the hiss and wounded sound that wells up in Hank and lets loose like some primal groan from the earth itself. He strokes faster, letting the head of Hank’s cock pop through the slick valve his curled fist makes, and goes lightheaded when he thinks about that same flushed tip touching some deep, hidden place inside him—soon, soon, tonight even, if he can have things the way he wants just this once.

When Hank comes, it’s in thick ropes of pearly white that dribble over Connor’s fist and into the bath. It seems like he twitches and pulses in Connor’s hand forever, and finally, when it stops, they’re both shaking and shiny with cool sweat, breathing hard. Connor feels like he’s bruised his right side from pressing his ribs over the unforgiving lip of the bathtub.

“Damn,” Hank pants, large fingers gentle where they touch the inside of Connor’s wrist in some unspoken thank-you. “Never did that before.” 

“Me either,” Connor says, reaching for the discarded washcloth to wipe off his hand. He smiles deviously, winking at Hank from behind his foggy glasses. “First time for everything, right?” 

“I’d say so,” Hank says gruffly, seemingly a touch more shy again now that his dick’s gone soft again and he’s sitting in spunk water. He leans forward and pulls the drain, and Connor takes that as his cue to get up and shake open a fresh bath towel he pulls down from the shelf. His arms still tremble with some mixture of exertion and yearning, but there’s nothing to do for it right now, even with his cock still half-hard in his jeans. 

When they’ve got Hank into a pair of boxers and settled on the edge of the bed again to buckle back into his knee brace, he suddenly seems to remember that Connor’s gotten the short end of the stick. He looks at Connor’s crotch and bites into his bottom lip, glancing up. “Do you, uh. Want me to return the favor, or…?”

Connor wants so much, but he doesn’t say it. At least not yet.

“Later,” he says, reaching down to push a damp wave behind Hank’s ear. “I still need to go pick up your meds before it gets too late. But...later.” He lets out a shaky breath. “Yeah.” 

Hank looks guilty and rakish all at once, eyes heavy-lidded and sensual. “I owe you so much,” he says. The words come without warning, but aren’t anything rushed or abrupt. It sounds like a truth Hank’s held inside for more than just a little while. He leans forward, presses a kiss to the middle of Connor’s chest through the damp fabric of his undershirt, strangely intimate and sweet at the same time. “I want to make you feel good.” 

“You do,” Connor rasps, lightly touching the back of his head. Wishing, hoping, needing. “You will.” 

“I’ll try,” Hank says, blowing out a steady sigh. He reaches up to palm at Connor’s sides, big hands warm and gentle. “You deserve better than this. Somebody who can...take care of you, like you need. Not a fuckin’ cripple.” 

“You aren’t crippled, and you shouldn’t say that,” Connor admonishes, even if his scolding lands softly on the top of Hank’s head. “People with a lot more mobility issues than you have incredible, meaningful sex. It’s perfectly possible, so don’t give me that sorry old excuse.” 

When Hank doesn’t say anything, Connor’s fingers trail down over the back of his neck and freckled shoulders. “Besides,” he adds, “I like you just the way you are. If I needed somebody to take care of me, I would’ve gone looking for them a long time ago.” 

“Alright, Mr. Independent,” Hank huffs, popping Connor’s backide with the flat of his hand. “I got the message.” 

“Good,” Connor says, reaching for a button-up shirt for Hank to shrug into just to keep the chill off his back. Hank doesn’t button it at the front, simply lets it hang open so his chest and belly are on full display. According to the prior medical records Hank’s primary care physician had sent along, it’s obvious in more than just numbers that Hank’s lost some weight during his time in the hospital. But Connor figures they can fix that up in no time, with some solid meals and a regular eating schedule. Cut back on the Black Lamb, he thinks, and replace it with more protein and healthier carbs.

Back in the kitchen, once Connor’s changed into a fresh shirt and thrown his other one in the laundry, they sit down and finish prepping dinner. Fried bacon, canned chicken noodle, and a sleeve of Keeblers isn’t the best spread they’ve had, but it fills them up for the time being. Hank crushes his crackers up in his soup and seems perfectly content while he sits on the sofa with the TV playing reruns of 80s flicks, but when he sets his bowl to the side he wrinkles up his face a bit and says, somberly, “I miss Sumo.” 

Connor thinks of Trio left at home with nobody but Richard for company and feels the same way. At least he’s able to go back and forth between Hank’s house and his place to see him; Hank having a St. Bernard underfoot right now wouldn’t be the easiest obstacle on top of everything else with his need for crutches and help getting from room to room.

“I want to meet him,” Connor says, watching a pout pull around the lower part of Hank’s face. God, it’s pitiful and endearing all at the same time. “Maybe we can go over to Ben’s place sometime this weekend? You should give him a call and ask.” 

“That’s an idea,” Hank says, reaching up to pass a hand over his face. “Still, though. I wish Sumo was here. I’d rather him be with me than slobbering up poor Ben’s place.” 

Connor stands and takes Hank’s bowl in hand, already on his way back to the kitchen. “Depending on what your surgeon says on Monday, maybe we’ll be able to bring him back home,” he says. “So long as you keep healing up without any complications.” 

“Do I look complicated to you, sweetheart?” Hank teases, tipping his head back to watch Connor from down the strong bridge of his nose. His eyes are lazy, sleepier than before. Clearly a good handjob and a warm meal are both high up on Hank Anderson’s Languages of Love List.

Connor gets his car keys and shrugs into his jacket, already shaking his head. The pharmacy closes in less than an hour and he’s got work in the morning. 

“You have no idea,” he says. The warm sound of Hank’s answering laughter follows him through the front door and out into the brisk twilight of Detroit’s evening.  
  
  


+  
  
  


Once he’s bagged up all five of Hank’s prescriptions and eyeballed them all again for accuracy, Connor wanders the pharmacy aisles until he finds the family planning section. Thinking back to Hank’s bachelor pad bedside drawer, he plucks a box of condoms off the shelf and another bottle of lube, for good measure. Adds a frozen pizza, coffee grounds, some bread, milk, and the fixings for tuna salad on top of that in case Hank doesn’t want to order out tomorrow. Just carrying the condoms to checkout up front makes his face feel too warm. 

God, it’s been a long time since he got laid. 

Thinking about it objectively is strange, like it’s an item on his calendar or something to check off a to-do list. Connor tries to reassure himself that the act in itself will be organic and earnest because he and Hank have a connection, even if the timing isn’t entirely spontaneous. When did he become such a fucking romantic? _The timing,_ his own inner narrator scoffs as the cashier dumps his goods into the bag with Hank’s prescriptions. _Get a grip. You just need to get fucked._

Truth be told, Connor worries a little about Hank’s blood pressure and stamina so soon after recovering from several gunshot wounds and major surgery. But then again, other than having sex in the emergency room, he supposes banging an ICU nurse is the next best safety protocol. 

He drives back to Hank’s place with a jumbled wad of nerves bouncing around his gut like a rubber band ball. It’s not even 8:00 yet, but already Connor’s dreading his 5:30 a.m. alarm and tomorrow’s twelve-hour shift. He forgot his shampoo and soap at home, so he tries to remember if Hank has decent stuff in the bathroom for him to shower in the morning.

Once the car is parked in the driveway, Connor turns the engine off and sits there in silence. He looks at his condoms and lube in the pharmacy bag and feels a weird pang of shame and guilt—maybe it _is_ too soon for any of this. Maybe they’re taking things too fast for Hank’s healing body.

Just then, Connor’s phone buzzes in his jacket pocket. He pulls it out and glances at the screen, and as sure as the world, there’s a message from Hank.

All it says is: _if you’re still out, we need more lube ;-)_

Connor snorts out a laugh and leans forward to rest his forehead on the steering wheel, hanging there at a loss. He stares down at his phone between his knees and taps out his reply: _Don’t worry, I came prepared._

Hank suddenly seems the least concerned when it comes to his recovering ailments, which is both deeply worrisome and heartening at the same time. Go figure. Connor lets that put some wind back into his sails as he hefts up the shopping bags and shoulders his way back inside.

“Oh, shit, that was quick,” Hank says, looking up from his phone. He’s got a pair of his readers on and Connor nearly trips over his own feet when he sees those blue eyes staring back at him from over the top of a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. “Did you fly there and back?” 

“I’ve got my ways,” Connor says cryptically, unloading Hank’s prescriptions and reading the directions on each bottle before shaking out two pills into his hand. They’re meant to be taken with food, but they didn’t eat all too long ago. Hank swallows them with a little bit of his tap water this time, still wearing those confounded glasses. He’s apparently been busy reading while Connor was out.

“I need to use your shower, if you don’t mind,” Connor says, pressing his teeth into his bottom lip like Hank would somehow say _no, you can’t_ , _even though you just jerked me off in that same room a couple hours ago_. “I’ve gotta work another early shift tomorrow.” 

“‘Course, be my guest,” Hank grunts, though he reaches out and presses a thumb into Connor’s hand before he can walk away again. “Mind helping me back to the bedroom real quick? Figure I can...uh, watch TV in there until I conk out or whatever. You know how these meds are.” 

The pressure of Hank’s thumb in the heart of his palm makes Connor’s stomach do a somersault in his gut. He swallows tightly, mouth dry, and nods. “You’d probably be more comfortable back there anyway,” he says, shifting his weight around to help pull Hank up off the couch. “Let’s go.”

In the bathroom again, Connor starts heating up the shower and debates whether he should shut the door behind him or not. Is it too familiar? Too impersonal? He can’t decide either way, but when he looks up and glances in the mirror he can see Hank’s right eye at the edge of the glass.

When he shuts the door a few inches with a casual push of his hand, it barely does anything at all to conceal the interior of the bathroom. Connor strips there by the vanity, stepping out of his jeans and carefully folding them on the edge of the counter. He pulls his shirt over his head and folds it as well while steam begins filling the room, turning so his back is facing the door. He leaves his briefs on the floor and feels chills crop up on his calves and the backs of his arms, making his nipples pebble, too. He knows Hank is watching him, but he won’t turn around and look. There’ll be time for that later.

Connor washes up as thoroughly as he can in all the places it matters, rubbing himself down with Hank’s body wash. It’s not expensive stuff, probably bought in a two-pack for a deal price, but it carries the heady scent of pine and makes Connor’s skin pleasantly tingle. 

When he’s beginning to turn pink from the hot water he stops the shower and dries off, taking his time with his bedtime routine: floss, brush, moisturize around his eyes where he gets dry in the winter. The stuff he picked up at the pharmacy stares out at him from his overnight bag on top of the closed toilet seat, looking stark and obvious amidst his humble pajamas and carefully folded socks.

Connor walks out in his shorts and old graphic tee and glasses, extremely aware of the soft fabric brushing his dick whenever he steps a certain away. He turns the bathroom light off and suddenly the whole bedroom is only lit up with the soft blue light of the television. It makes Hank’s eyes look as clear as arctic ice, though nothing about them is cold. 

“C’mere,” he murmurs, patting the spot beside him. “Not sure if there’s anything good on, but we can flip around.” 

Connor climbs into bed and for all his 32 years feels, briefly, like a little boy again—the bed is too big, Hank is big, he’s feeling wildly unsure about where this evening is headed and wearing his silly night clothes. But he shakes the thought away and settles on the cool sheets, feeling the nearby heat radiate off Hank like a big-bellied iron furnace.

The few scant inches of space between them feels like a mile. Connor fluffs up a pillow behind his head and tries to focus on the TV but merely watches the pictures move without really seeing them. He smells Hank and spicy pine everywhere, all around them. Only the clothes he brought from home carry the lingering scent of his own laundry detergent, but it’s quickly overpowered by the rest. Hank obviously hadn’t changed these sheets before he went into the hospital, and it makes a fresh chill wriggle up the column of Connor’s spine.

The bedside clock teeters just on the edge of 9, hanging on by a thread. The room and whole house feels dark but peaceful as the television casts shapes and shadows on the walls. It takes Connor a while to realize that Hank’s shrugged out of his shirt and thrown it in the chair over in the corner. His chest and belly steadily rise and fall with each easy breath, and when Connor reaches up without warning and gently rests a hand somewhere near his heart, he doesn’t look up or startle. 

“I—I’ve been out of the game a long time, y’know,” Hank says, letting out a deep exhalation through his nose. He looks down through his sparse lashes at Connor’s hand and reaches up to cover it with his own, voice lowering. “I didn’t think I’d ever do this again, Con. So if I fuck up…” 

He trails off, but Connor scoots closer and props himself up on his elbow, carefully pulling his hand out from under Hank’s so he can touch the pink-skin spot on his chest, fitting his fingertip into the soft, healing groove there. 

“I’m not waiting around for you to fuck up,” Connor says, tracing around the rounded scar. He draws his hand lower to where the second bullet hit Hank low on his belly and cost him part of his liver. This scar is bigger, more severe and lopsided; they’d had to cut him open quickly to stop the bleeding and begin repairing the damage. Connor knows it’s both numb and sensitive at the same time, tender in places but dead in others where the nerve endings won’t ever quite be the same again. 

He leans in and tucks himself more firmly by Hank’s side, lips just barely at the curve of his shoulder while he thinks about what he’d be doing right now if Hank Anderson hadn’t lived through those first few nights.

"I prayed for you," he rasps out.

Hank goes still enough that Connor feels the change in his breathing. Finally, he looks over, staring at Connor’s mouth rather than his eyes. “Why would you do a thing like that?” he asks.

Connor smiles, wishing it wouldn’t wobble as he does. “Somebody had to,” he says. “You were alone and it just felt like something I needed to do.” 

Hank’s eyes flicker up, the seam between his brows pinched tight. “You didn’t know me at all,” he says. “I was just another limp body on your rotation around the ward.” 

That makes Connor’s heart beat faster in muted anger, because he doesn’t believe it. He has compassion for _all_ his patients, no matter who they are or what they’ve been through, but maybe the truth is stranger than fiction. Hank probably wouldn’t even believe him. 

“I knew you were a good man,” Connor says emphatically. “I...could feel it.” And then, laughing a little as he tiptoes two fingers up Hank’s belly like a slope, “Maybe I wanted you for myself but didn’t quite know it yet.” 

“You’re full of hot air,” Hank snorts, but he takes Connor’s hand and brushes a whiskery kiss over the back of his knuckles. Then another into the palm of his hand, softer this time, and another at the base of his thumb. He clears his throat with Connor’s fingers grazing his cheek and murmurs, very quietly, “Thank you...for everything, Con. I mean that.” 

“I know you do,” Connor says. He doesn’t say he was just doing his job, because they both know by now that it was so much more than that. The air around them still feels easy and warm, not cold or electrified. It’s easy, somehow, for Connor to keep fumbling out his own truths. 

“I haven’t done this in a while, either,” he sighs. “I...uhm. Well, I think it’s been over a year.” 

Hank narrows his eyes as he searches Connor’s face. “A year since what?” 

“Since I was intimate with anybody,” Connor says in a rush, flushing until he feels ruddy from his throat to his chest. 

“Well, honey,” Hank says, chuckling a bit breathlessly. “I’ve got you beat by about two years, so don’t sweat it. Shit sneaks up on you pretty fast when somebody works as hard as you do.”

They watch each other through the strange blue light coming off the television. Connor looks into Hank’s face and feels the most comfortable he’s felt in a long, long time. Like this was just some forgone conclusion he’d been waiting to step right into, a seamless kind of transition between two points on a line graph. Turns out the fine lines at the corners of Hank’s eyes and the smile lines around his mouth led him to this point on the bigger map.

He’s not sure who moves first, but they meet in the middle, colliding in a tentative kiss that quickly deepens. Connor drops down from his elbow and simply lays there in the circle of Hank’s arms like all his strings have been cut, clinging to his shoulders and moaning as Hank’s fingers tangle in the curls on top of his head and gently tug.

Connor wants to be careful not to put pressure anywhere on Hank’s torso, but at the same moment he wants so much to be wrapped up and held onto. Hank must sense this because he wordlessly wraps one strong arm around Connor’s waist and hoists him closer like he’s a doll and not six feet of lean muscle mass.

“Hank,” Connor says once his lips feel swollen from kissing, the name a soft sound at first. 

“Hmm?” Hank murmurs, currently nuzzling under the edge of Connor’s jaw.

“Hank,” Connor repeats, more desperately this time, and that makes Hank haul back to really look him in the eye. 

Now that he’s got Hank’s full attention, Connor doesn’t quite know what he was expecting to feel or say. The condoms are still in his bag in the bathroom, which feels like three miles instead of three paces. Hank’s leg is still busted and in an immobilizer. Connor hasn’t fucked anybody since—

“Here,” Hank says, reaching over to pull Connor’s glasses off his face where they’d slipped down to the tip of his nose. He folds the arms and twists around a bit to make sure they’re safely on the side table again. “Now I can see you.” 

Connor laughs, closes his eyes, wets his bottom lip. Opens them again so he can see Hank watching him with some fond little smile hanging around his mouth. Now or never, he thinks. He’ll lose his mind if he doesn’t say something.

“You okay?” Hank asks. “You look like you’re about to slam home the winning answer on _Jeopardy_.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Connor tells him, letting out a breath like a hissing tire. “I just need you to fuck me.” 

That makes Hank laugh, a warm guffaw close enough that Connor can feel it. “Jeez, I was working up to it,” he says a bit sheepishly. Then his features narrow down into the pinpointed focus of a wild cat. “You...you got the lube and everything?” 

“I’ve got more than enough,” Connor says, already sitting up on his way to go fetch the supplies in question. “We wouldn’t have to leave this house for three days if I didn’t have to work, Hank, but I swear if I don’t get to sit on your cock in the next twenty minutes I’m going to lose it.” 

Hank’s eyes widen and by the time he manages to shift around onto his back, Connor’s already returned with a box he’s ripping into and a bottle he tosses on the bed. He shimmies out of his cotton shorts there where he stands and simply lets them drop to the floor, though the long hem of his old t-shirt is still keeping him modest as he slips back onto the sheets. 

“Christ, you’re about to eat me alive,” Hank croaks. “I saw you puttin’ on a little show in the bathroom earlier.” 

“That was nothing,” Connor says, even though his heart is racing faster than a spooked rabbit’s. He swings a leg over Hank’s thighs like he’s finding his seat in a saddle and God help them both, Hank can feel the raw heat coming off Connor’s pecker through his boxer shorts. 

“Let me see,” Hank murmurs, sweetly trying to pull the edge of Connor’s shirt up for a peek, but Connor bats his hand away.

“Oh no you don’t, not yet,” Connor says, thumbing the cap off the lube and squirting a generous amount into his palm. “This is about to be a five-minute miracle.” 

Without missing a beat, Hank settles his big hands around Connor’s bare thighs just above his knees and gently squeezes. “That’s what they called me back at the academy,” he says, winking. Then, watching Connor reach back between his legs with a look of utter determination, he says, “I can do that, y’know. If you want me to. My, uh...hands still work ‘n all.”

“Later,” Connor rasps. “We’ll have all the time in the world, Hank, but right now I—I’m, kind of in something of a hurry.”

The angle is awkward and he probably should’ve done a round of yoga before attempting this, but Connor manages to press the first finger in and eases back down on it to let his body get used to the strange feeling of being penetrated after a dry spell. He thinks of Hank’s toy in the bedside table drawer and bites into his bottom lip, already wishing he’d started with two fingers instead of just one. 

The silence filled with nothing but the mismatched tempos of their breathing becomes a little too heavy, and Connor needs to focus on other things while he works. “When’s the last time you fucked a guy?” he asks. Even with Jen in the bigger historical picture, Hank’s always been too easygoing with the idea of kissing and touching Connor to have never knocked boots with another man before. He took to it all like a seasoned natural.

“Been a while,” Hank admits nonetheless, still running his hands up and down Connor’s thighs in a slow, soothing way like he’s settling a high-strung horse. “Maybe ten, twelve years. Before Jen, anyway.” 

Connor nods, pulls in a deep breath and slips that second finger in beside the first to start working himself open in earnest. He’s not fully hard, yet, but he can see Hank’s length tenting up the fabric of his boxers there between the spread of his own thighs. So close, and yet so far.

“Talk to me,” Connor tries, crooking his fingers and making a low noise in his chest. “T-tell me what you like.” 

“I’m not too hard to please,” Hank says, maybe a little fast on the draw. He laughs, then, just a soft huff between them in the still room. “At this point I’ll take whatever I can get and feel lucky, I guess.” 

“That’s not what I asked,” Connor says, tone verging on his stern nurse voice. He catches Hank’s eye, briefly, and then looks back down. “I...snooped in your bedside drawer,” he says, feeling a little guilty but also better, somehow, for having admitted it. 

Hank sighs but smiles. “I already figured as much,” he says, snorting. “I’d have been surprised if you hadn’t.” 

“And?” Connor says, already thinking about that third finger he needs to squeeze in beside the other two. The stretch already burns, just the tiniest pinch of discomfort, but he needs to push past it and focus. “Maybe I’ll have to use this knowledge to my advantage sometime.” 

Hank clears his throat, and if his face reddens Connor can’t quite see it in this light. “Maybe you will,” he says in a deep voice, eyes cast elsewhere. In the same moment Connor finally gets three fingers up to the knuckle and has started shaking from the strain in his thighs. 

“Almost,” Connor rasps, wishing and silently praying this is easy, willing his body to relax. It’s been a long time, but the fact that he wants this so badly has got to count for something. He can almost see it as much as he can feel it in his mind’s inner eye, lingering like a premonition. 

“Help me sit up real quick, baby, when you’re ready,” Hank says after a gentle beat of silence. The TV behind them has turned down so low that it’s barely audible, but Connor doesn’t know when Hank managed to lower the volume. “Don’t want to watch from all the way down here.” 

A few more moments of scissoring himself open makes Connor feel like it’s as good as it’s ever gonna get, at least for tonight. He pulls his fingers free and wipes them somewhere on the back of his t-shirt, wincing but feeling the cool air hit where he’s been messily stretched open.

He reaches for Hank, and when they’re facing each other Hank’s expression comes back into clearer focus. Connor lets out a breath of relief he didn’t know he’d been holding in, feeling those broad hands on his sides slide lower, thumbing at his hip bones, palms slowly reaching back to squeeze his ass. 

“Don’t think too hard,” Hank says, leaning forward to take Connor’s chin for a kiss. As gentle as his lips are, his cock is rock solid when Connor reaches down to palm around it through his underwear. “We’re both fine. I just want you to feel good, alright? Whatever you need, tell me.” 

Connor nods, halfway dazed, and pulls back to get his bearings. “Let me get a condom.” 

He fumbles around for the torn box at the foot of the bed and rips off a condom from the perforated edge before tearing into it with his teeth. Hank watches, eyes dark and nearly all pupil, as Connor crawls back up to settle himself in the warm spot he left on Hank’s lap.  
  
Without thinking, he reaches for the front of Hank’s boxers and then stops fast, pulling back with the condom hanging there like a sad balloon between his fingers. Connor looks up and Hank’s already gazing back at him, fond and amused. 

“It doesn’t bite,” he teases, brows raising just a hair. His voice has gone rough and husky like woodsmoke. “Not anything you haven’t seen before.”

“I know,” Connor croaks, flushing hot. “I just—this is different.” He bites into his lip and tries to find the words, but none of them seem to come other than, “I want you to do it.” 

Hank studies his face for a moment, then nods. He takes the condom in one hand and pulls his hard cock from his boxers with the other, and this time Connor does lend a hand to pull them further down his thighs. Hank doesn’t need to, but gives himself a long, lazy stroke anyway, blowing out a deep breath through his nose that makes his nostrils flare. He puts the rubber in place and then rolls it down, making sure it’s snug there at the base. 

Connor watches it all like he’s dreaming, all the world except Hank right in front of him fuzzed out and gauzy at the edges. He doesn’t remember getting the lube bottle again, but then it’s in his hand and he’s slicking up Hank’s shaft with a palm full of clear gel. It makes an obscene noise. Connor trembles with so much anticipation that he’s surprised his teeth aren’t chattering.

“Alright, cowboy,” Hank murmurs, taking himself there at the base above his balls in one hand before slapping his thigh with the other. “Saddle up.” 

Connor makes a face at that but takes Hank’s words in determined stride. He rises up on his knees and doesn’t even think to strip his shirt off, can’t even be bothered with it right now, simply bunches up the hem under his belly button and slowly begins to ease back on Hank’s thick cock.

Hank makes a rough sound when the head slips past that tight muscle. Connor can hear every breath he draws in and pushes back out, lungs moving like the slow working of bellows. One of the velcro straps from the knee immobilizer is rubbing the inside of his right ankle. He doesn’t think about that. 

There’s the burning and slow, slow slide of gravity pulling him down, and then Connor getting impatient and pushing himself down the rest of the way with more fervor. He knows he’s never been this full. In all his life, he’s never felt this impossibly stretched and brimming. He tries to breathe through it, eyes watering, air coming in shallow, wet gasps. He’s not crying. He’s not. And then he’s sitting flush in Hank’s lap, feeling like he’ll never be able to stand again, and looks up with a rattling breath.

Any of the playfulness from before has dissipated into thin air, gone like a puff of blue-tinted smoke. Their eyes meet and hold. Connor moves, just an inch up and then back down, and makes a sound he’ll deny later. His half-hard cock is there between them, already feebly leaking, but he doesn’t touch it.

“Hey,” Hank says, sounding a little broken himself. “You good? Connor. You okay, baby?” He reaches out, touches Connor’s chest, lets both hands slip lower to his waist and the small of his back so he can try to hold him like this. “Look at you. Jesus Christ.” 

“I’m alright,” Connor says, bracing his hands on Hank’s shoulders before rising back up, waiting until he’s nearly empty to ease back down. It’s so much, too much all at once, but he needs it more than anything. “Hank,” he says, and then his voice crumples, torn down the middle. “Oh fuck.” 

Hank’s hands cup around Connor’s ass, patiently knead the flesh there like warm clay. He leans forward, presses a kiss into the dip of Connor’s throat and leaves his mouth there to whisper something Connor feels hum in his own vocal chords. 

“Lay down beside me,” Hank says, voice itself something gentle enough to curl up on. When Connor looks at him with a question behind his eyes, Hank smiles and lets out a weary kind of breath. “Fuck this fucking leg,” he says. “I wanna take care of you, this time.” 

Connor slowly slides off his cock and swears under his breath at the sudden shock of being so empty again. He settles down at Hank’s side, obediently pulling his arms through the sleeves of his t-shirt when Hank wordlessly endeavors to work it up over his head, movements careful.

He shifts, using his good leg for leverage, and pulls Connor back against his chest. When Hank’s hot hand hooks under his knee and pulls it back like it weighs nothing at all, Connor lets himself be spread open, muscles twitching in his belly as he watches their blended shadows on the wall.

Hank fists himself back inside, pushing in one slow thrust until his balls are nestled there between Connor’s cheeks. The depth and fullness nearly knocks all the wind out of Connor’s lungs for a second time; he tries to cry out, say something, but there’s only a whisper of a name on his lips and nothing else. 

“Shh, shh,” Hank says at the nape of his neck, nose crushed there into Connor’s fine curls, hips rocking forward in a gentle, steady tide. “I’m right here.”

Connor thought he called out to God, but he must’ve asked for Hank.

The raw heat rolling off Hank’s body is pressed tight along his back, but his front is open to the cool bedroom air. Connor wishes he could wrap Hank in his arms but settles for a pillow instead, clutching it to his chest for something to hold on to while he slowly gets taken apart. The edge of the fabric teases his sensitive dick and he whines long and low, mouth pressed into the musky smell of Hank and well-worn cotton.  
  
Hank’s grip around his knee tightens as he hoists Connor’s leg up another inch and fucks into him harder than before, startling a half-shout that flaps out of Connor’s lungs like a wayward starling. The bright pain is finally starting to recede as he begins to warm all over, the flush of arousal spreading over his chest and neck, burning pink even on the pale skin behind his knees.

“Hank,” Connor rasps, squeezing his eyes shut as Hank bottoms out. “Do that again.” 

“Like this?” Hank asks, voice all gravel in Connor’s left ear and the brush of whiskers at his shoulder. He rolls his hips back and then snaps them forward again, hard enough that Connor bites down on the pillow and tries not to wail. 

“Yes,” he says around a choked sob as Hank keeps going, splitting him open with each new pivot. Hank’s cock inside him drags along that spot that makes him see stars every time it shoves into his hole and Connor knows he’s at his end. “Yes, Hank, oh my God, please, _please_ —” 

Connor never even touches his cock or jerks himself to full mast. The heat stokes up fast like an old stove fire, burning him up from the inside out, and then he slowly, agonizingly tips over the crumbling edge, coming around Hank’s girth in a flood of spend that dribbles in little spurts from his cock that don’t ever seem to end. His body nearly convulses with it as that bright, balmy pleasure moves through him in a wave, Hank’s relentless fucking keeping no real end in sight.

Tears stream down Connor’s cheeks and dampen the pillow as his lungs hitch with broken-off sobs. He’s soaked between his thighs where he’s cum all over himself, nothing short of a ruined mess, and Hank still reaches over to try and draw him closer, coaxing Connor to twist around for a searing kiss. 

“You’re doing so good for me, baby,” Hank croaks against his lips, winded and straining to keep Connor’s leg in the air while his words run together. “I’m almost there, almost, almost, Jesus fucking _Christ_ you’re still so tight.” 

Connor digs his fingers into the meaty flesh around Hank’s love handle to keep himself anchored there, twisted and contorted but determined to see the moment Hank falls apart. Despite the emotions and endorphins surging through his own body, he watches through half-lidded eyes as Hank’s lips part open and his eyes squeeze shut, brow creased in that final surge toward the peak. His thrusts are hard, deep, and relentless, and when he bottoms out one last time a look of utter calmness comes over his face, smoothing out every divot and worry line for just a moment.

Hank comes so hard that Connor can feel it happen inside his body. The tightening of Hank’s balls against his ass, then the pulsing twitch as he fills the condom and fucks Connor through it in short, jerky little rolls of his hips. Hank doesn’t utter a word, doesn’t shout, doesn’t make any undignified sound through it all—simply breathes raggedly there with his head bowed at the nape of Connor’s neck, and then, when he’s halfway caught his breath, slowly drops Connor’s leg and reaches up to take his chin for another kiss.

Connor’s trembling from the exertion of it all, wedged there between Hank’s chest and his ruined pillow. Hank gradually slips out of his hole as their bodies relax, snapping off the condom and dropping it into the wastebasket under the side table before his hands wander off to palm along Connor’s ribs and hip bone like he’s marking places on a new map.

When he paws around Connor’s soft cock, he grunts in surprise when he feels the sticky wetness beginning to cool there. “Damn,” Hank says, warm laughter threaded through his voice. “You did all that without the ol’ reach-around?” 

Connor’s face heats up but he still grins lazily as he gradually turns over onto his back, staring up into two silver-blue eyes by light of the television. He bites into his lip when Hank arches an eyebrow, then nods. “I, uh...yeah. _Yeah._ Huh. It doesn’t usually work out like that.” 

Hank snorts at that with a cocky grin. “I’ll say,” he murmurs, but winces a little as he swings his immobilized leg into a more comfortable position, quickly masking over his own discomfort with a kiss he presses crookedly to the bridge of Connor’s nose. 

“Was that satisfactory for you, Mr. Anderson?” Connor asks in a low voice, eyes narrowed into something vaguely fox-like now that he’s well fucked and flushed rosy.   
  
Hank cuts him a stern look but laughs as he turns over onto his back and pulls Connor back in against his side, the mess be damned. “I may have to call your supervisor,” he sighs. “And put in an order for both a raise and a promotion for the best bedside manner in all of Detroit.” 

Connor smiles until his face hurts, feeling wicked and elated all at once. He’s giddy, relieved, sated, and knows with every bone in his body that he’ll hardly be able to walk during his twelve hour shift tomorrow, but it’s probably the most worthwhile sacrifice he’s ever made.

And then there’s that warm thing swelling somewhere behind his breastbone, bright and lovely. Connor wishes he could open his mouth and let some of the light out without saying the words. But he feels it strung between him and Hank, simmering there just beneath the surface. Real and good and true.

“There’s so much I want to know about you,” Connor whispers, running his fingertips through the coarse hair on Hank’s chest and belly, passing over scars and ink both old and new. “Tell me something I don’t know. Something I couldn’t have learned from a file.” 

Hank hums at that, tapping out some tuneless rhythm on Connor’s hip. His boxers are twisted around his bad knee and his softened cock, still wet with his own spunk, has flopped over to rest against one thigh. Connor looks at it all and thinks he could get used to this and even more.

After only a few short moments, Hank clears his throat and says, so casually that Connor almost misses it, “You made me want to keep living, y’know. My angel in blue scrubs.” 

Connor feels his vision blur before his stomach’s even settled back into place from hopping in his gut. His throat aches around words he doesn’t know how to say, and maybe it’s all too terribly sentimental, or maybe the frankness in Hank’s voice told him all he needed to know.

Hank presses a kiss to the soft waves at the top of Connor’s head and is quiet for a long moment. Then he settles back in, unperturbed, and taps his chin while he thinks. “When I was nine, I pretended to get hurt falling off the monkey bars so I could go sit with the pretty lady in the school clinic.”

Connor sniffles some but manages to find his voice again. “You had the hots for your nurse even back then, huh?” 

“What can I say?” Hank says, gently pinching Connor’s ass. “I know a good one when I see it.”  
  
  


\+ + + + +  
  
  


Connor’s phone alarm goes off a quarter past five the next morning. He thumbs the notification away and feels Hank shift at his back, one bleary hand sliding from the middle of Connor’s waist down to his thigh. 

“Call out sick,” he murmurs, nosing into the sleepy warmth between Connor’s neck and shoulder. It’s still dark out between the thin crack in Hank’s curtains and Connor’s tempted to call in every day for the rest of his life if this is what he gets to wake up to every day. Staying in this warm bed with a big, warm man is a lot more appealing than venturing out into the cold morning on his way to a 12 at the hospital.

“I can’t,” Connor whispers, turning around in Hank’s arms to give him a light peck on the lips. Their feet and legs briefly tangle together under the blankets and Connor already knows his barefoot walk from the bed to the shower is going to be a sore one. “You’re on your own today.”

Hank groans, whining like a kicked hound, but makes to sit up with Connor instead of laying back down. “Help me get those crutches, babe, and I’ll put coffee on while you’re getting ready.” He twists on the bedside lamp and suddenly they’re squinting at each other in the golden throw of light, faces pinching into smiles at the sight of each other’s bedhead and pillow-creased cheeks. 

It’s a new but familiar feeling all at the same time. Sweet, tentative, and startlingly domestic. Connor can’t think of anything he’s missing other than a three-legged cat and a big fluffy dog.

He stands and stretches, naked under his t-shirt, and walks around to the other side of the bed to get his glasses and pass Hank’s fallen crutches over. A pair of rumpled boxers are on the floor and he hands those over, too, as Hank slowly sits up and maneuvers his legs into place.

He gently shoos Connor off toward the bathroom once he’s got his shorts pulled on and crutches in hand. “I’ll figure it out,” Hank says, yawning and stretching until his shoulder pops. “Meet me in the kitchen.” 

Connor showers, shaves, and gets dressed in his work scrubs in fifteen minutes. He pads out into the living room on socked feet to look for his shoes and finds Hank already settled down on the couch with a cup of coffee and his readers on his nose, already busy reading the paper. There’s another mug on the table and Connor picks that up before sinking down next to him, content to listen to the low murmur of some infomercial running on the TV. 

“Take your meds yet?” Connor asks, sipping the warm brew even though the steam fogs up his glasses. “Probably need to wash them down with something solid.” 

The toaster pops up just then and Hank looks up over his glasses, smiling just a tad. Connor sighs and gets up before Hank can reach for his crutches again, breezing into the kitchen to fish out a piece for each of them. “You want butter or jam?” he calls into the living room.

“You can butter my toast any day,” is the answer he gets, and then after a little laugh, “Uh, both is fine. Thanks, Con.”

They eat their toast and drink their coffee in a comfortable kind of early-morning silence, in this private little moment before the rest of the world begins to wake. Connor’s second alarm goes off on his wristwatch and he silences it before lacing up into his shoes, patting his thighs once he’s done.

“I’ve gotta head out,” he says, eyes roving over Hank’s handsome profile. “Call me if you need anything, okay? Doesn’t matter what it is. I’ll send the whole fire station over here if I have to.” 

“Don’t you dare,” Hank grumbles, though he’s trying not to smile as he says so. Connor goes to put his coffee cup in the sink and comes back to leave Hank with his cell phone, a glass of water, and two ibuprofen tablets, just in case. 

Hank holds up an open hand for something else, and when Connor takes it he gently reels him in for a kiss. His other hand sneaks around to cop a handful of Connor’s ass, which makes him jump a little and giggle, but Hank still isn’t letting go just yet. 

“Are you gonna behave yourself today?” Connor asks, words close enough to drop into Hank’s lap. “You know I’m going to start worrying the second I walk out the door.”

Hank smiles and shakes his head, blue eyes bright. There’s color on his face despite how early it is and he tastes like black coffee and a little like morning breath, but that’s okay. Connor keeps their heads bowed together because he wants to. Because he’s kept his finger on Hank Anderson’s pulse this whole time, watching it by the clock, and it feels like a privilege to have him like this now. Both of them here because they want to be here. 

Hank pats Connor’s rear once more for the road and reaches up to touch his cheek, gentler this time, imparting some unspoken bouquet of things he won’t say but they both understand. “Don’t worry about me,” he says, deep voice reassuring like it is. “I’ll be here when you get home.”  
  
  



End file.
